Don’t undermine Medicare

GOP sabotage has indeed fueled the ACA’s deterioration (Dana Milbank, March 16), just as it has propelled Medicare’s financial instability. Private insurers have been gaming Medicare to increase their profits since 1972. In 1982, the government dropped its profit sharing and capitation requirements for private Medicare and began paying companies 95 percent of its average local costs, expecting that the loudly proclaimed superior private management skills would more than make up the difference. Instead, the companies demanded higher payments while only enrolling the healthiest seniors and dis-enrolling those with expensive needs.

By 2004, after several Republican led increases, overpayments amounted to 107 percent to 132 percent of what traditional Medicare would have paid. A 2013 study found a total of $282.6 billion in overpayments between 1985 and 2012. Could this be the main reason why Medicare is supposedly in trouble? Overpayments are used for increased executive compensation, marketing and lobbying expenses.

Medicare’s overhead is about three percent of its budget, while the ACA attempts to force private companies to get overhead below 15 percent and reduce overpayments. The Republican canard in response is blame government and privatize more.

Support traditional Medicare! Refuse Medicare Take-Advantage plans!

Cris M. Currie, RN

Mead