(Photo illustration by Getty Images).
The “Great Grab,” gleefully tabbed as “Medicare Advantage” has begun.
Every year we are treated to an unending flood of advertisements on every medium imaginable emanating from for-profit health insurers. Their medical expertise is bloviated by such people as Joe Namath and William Shatner, neither particularly qualified to comment on Medicare except for their age. Anyone who has missed these deceptive spots has either been out of the country, oblivious to every news or entertainment medium, or brain dead.
The objective of these ads is to lure as many older citizens as possible into a trap called “Medicare Advantage.” It all sounds great, but most of it is an avaricious grab from the federal program originally set up to ensure that all citizens in our country are provided adequate healthcare in their later years or if they’re disabled. Or both.
Medicare Advantage is no advantage for seniors or people with disabilities, and certainly not for people with chronic, long-term health problems. On the contrary, Medicare Advantage is a ruse by private health insurance companies squeezing their way into the federal budget to grab as much of the Medicare funds as possible without having to do much to justify any of it. In fact, these private health care companies are the robber barons dipping into a pot of money that was solely for the healthcare needs of elderly and disadvantaged citizens.
The loudest, longest, and most persistent complaints about this Medicare Advantage cash grab by private insurance companies is the Physicians for a National Health Program, a single-issue organization advocating a universal, comprehensive single-payer national health program that covers everyone. That’s right, everyone. Even you, now, at whatever age you are.
But first, there’s Medicare Advantage to wrestle with, growing like noxious weeds in the garden, without advantages that help seniors and people with disabilities. It bears little similarity to the Original Medicare Program that has been a lifeline for seniors and the disabled who had few options for timely, adequate healthcare until Medicare and Medicaid legislation was passed in 1965. In fact, major health insurance companies like Aetna, UnitedHealth, and Humana spend millions on advertising and aggressive lobbying to obscure their raid on taxpayer funds, and too often fail to provide timely, needed, adequate care to needy patients.
Space available in this piece will not do justice to all the failures and greed these private insurers blithely have committed, but PNHP has listed several of the more egregious shortcomings of these rapacious companies:
On Deceiving Taxpayers:
“Reports from journalists, researchers, and government agencies have shown that health insurance companies overcharge Medicare by giving patients exaggerated or entirely false diagnoses. Several companies have been fined or sued and agreed to large settlements. Medicare Advantage insurers are taking tax dollars for conditions they aren’t even treating.”
On Denying Treatment:
On Dismantling Medicare:
“Over 50% of Medicare beneficiaries now have for-profit corporations in charge of their care through Medicare Advantage. Insurance companies are paid handsomely for these plans, and much of that money goes to corporate profits instead of care. The companies running Medicare Advantage plans want to take over Medicare entirely, leaving Medicare eligible patients with no option but to send their money to private, for profit insurers. How much of your premiums are ending up as company profits?”
There are many more aspects of the privately run Medicare Advantage raids that are skimming cash from eligible elders and the disabled. The original intent of the 1965 federal legislation that produced Medicare was not intended to provide a profit stream for insurance companies. It is for us, healthcare for the elderly and handicapped now, and eventually, perhaps, for every citizen, from birth to the last breath. Other countries can do it, why not us?
Bruce Midgett is retired from a publishing business owned with his wife, Diane, and a 20-year career as an administrator of a various social agencies, including Chief Comprehensive Health Planner in southeastern Washington State.