Obama Defends Medicare Advantage Cuts

If I relied solely on Medicare for my health care coverage, I would be in a world of hurt. By having Med-Advantage coverage from an insurance carrier as my ‘primary’ insurance, I am able to see a doctor when I need, and I am healthier for it. To lose the insurance I now have would be detrimental to my good health.

My Blue Cross Advantage program – $69/mo. US Govt Medicare in addition, $250/mo. Do the math, Advantage is better and affords me more respect in the medical community than being on the government dole!

Jake, I agree that making a profit out of health care is morally unacceptable, but I have to point out that the insurance industry is NOT health care. Furthermore, the best health care systems in our country our non profit organizations. For-profit health care systems have been one of the worst causes rising in health care costs in our country. As far as I’m concerned, it’s a conflict of interests, and it can’t be accomplished with true compassion and concern for the well being of patients.

also on a sad note please mention Henry Gibson next week a very underated actor
thanks

Unless you are on Medicare Advantage, you do not have the right to critize the plan. My husband is on an Advantage Plan and it is very reasonable. He sees his doctor for regular checkups and is given appointments when he is ill in a timely manner. It also pays for the 20% that the Government does not pay for hospitalization and provides drug coverage. The person pays for coverage every month and the cost is reasonable and the government cannot dictate what is covered and what is not covered. If it was up to the President, he would not give as much care to the elderly because he sees the last year of an elderly person’s life a burden on health care. He doesn’t seem to take into consideration that these people paid for health care since the time it became available through empoyers and in some cases paid for it themselves when they needed to. Having the gift of motivational speaking is not anyway to judge whether or not the person is speaking the truth. However, it is a great tool if you want to sell something to the public and it may not be what the public needs.

Having constituents actually pay something extra like in MA, insures they have some skin in the game of holding some responsibility for their health. Perhaps 14% markup is an appalling number to many, but your cigarettes are marked up 400%, your twinkies are marked up 300%, your gas is up 100% from taxes, so where is the outcry there? I don’t know if 14% is a fair margin, but it assumes the government would run the same with no inefficies or waste to compete or exceed that same 14%. Pleas think everything can’t be free people, no free food, no free beer, no free gas, no free medical services. One way or another it costs you all. I fear the direction of the charitable giving in this country, if people start sensing our wallets are opened for us, and the charity taken out.

Medicare advantage streamlines a caim process made complicated by the government. It also provides supplemental coverage for the medicare coverage shortfall (unlimited 20% co-pay).
Medicare advantage also provides prescription drug coverage including the “medicare gap”.
It does all this for little or no cost to people trying to live on a social security check.
If the government puts this “savings” on the backs of old people, they will have to purchase a supplement policy; if they can afford one.
That 14% savings the President mentioned will come right out of my pocket, then we’ll pay a government employee twice as much to do half the work done very well by the insurance company.
Why does no one speak for old people?

“Back to the Future” was not only a good movie, but ought to be the mantra for digging out of this healthcare mess. What was wrong with healthcare in 1950 or 1954. Take it back the way it was, I say. Used to be a doctor patient personal business, now its all strewn with politicians, and HMO middleman CEOs, who obviously add a lot more than 14% in attempting to control the “fee- for-service” models. Best experiment from the past century now proving viable for healthcare is the Mayo Clinics and Mayo medical school. Ask those Mayo folks if they could/would run an “Advantage” program of some sort.

George finally touched on this, which no one else has, but sadly he was uncharacteristically unprepared. E.G. WHAT Democrat & Republican”EXPERTS” did he get his misinformation from? He needs to check his facts before he publicly proclaims that HMO”S are giving the SAME coverage for less money. This is plainly FALSE. Did he ever ask the REAL experts who have the coverage? If Medicare could, why didn’t they in the first place & we wouldn’t need HMO’s & if they add the missing benefits they’ll just be losing MORE money? What’s wrong with this picture? P.S. Anybody notice the irony of: right below these comments is a “Sponsered Link” to Medicare Supplement Insurance. These insurance companies are going to get rich now. Congratulations AARP. Good Job!!!!

This is a complete and total war on the elderly. Call it what is is Obama… you want the elderly gone and out of the way.

Laurie Bush was just as wrong for pushing Medicare part D as Obama is pushing for an entire overhaul of healthcare. My mother pays more now for drugs than she did before with Medicare and supplimental insurance thanks to Medicare part D. Plus it is more confusing to understand. Nothing Obama proposes is going to be easier. The country is broke. They won’t fix the system that led to the economic failure. Obama is bailing out his friends in government and the unions, the people who got him to power. That is all he is seriously interested in. Everything else is smoke and mirrors. The Democrats are being played, the Republicans are being played the taxpayers in general are being played. Jobs in this country are provided 80% by small business and Obama and his minions have done absolutely squat to help them survive. As long as you are a too big to fail corporation with ties to Unions and the Fed you are worth saving. It not, oh well. Medicare is not going to be fixed, this year or any other…

People have looked at this preventive care idea. IT DOESN”T WORK. The reason is that the money to do this ends up being spent looking at 99 out of 100 absolutely well patients. Obama is the most deceptive politician in years. He cannot be trusted to tell the truth about anything.

And they wanted to quickly pass this bummer of a bill in August before they even had a bill or anyone knew what was in it. It’s – pass this now and we will work out the details later and decide what we want in it. Not acceptable!

This is about the most slippery interview I have seen of Obama to date. The whole issue of Medicare cuts serves as example of his attitude in general when looking at reform. It’s not about Medicare Advantage per se, but about the way Obama views health care that scares me.
Obama basically views health care as a commodity – that everyone is alike and that there can be precise rules for who needs what treatment or not. Physicians and patients alike would agree that this is NOT the case. People respond to different medicines and treatments differently. This blatant oversimplification on the part of Obama objectifies the role of health care in people’s lives – and is a major fault.
I remember a recent speech he gave a month or two ago he kept talking about a “blue pill” and a “red pill” – and if they were equivalent, they could save money on the cheaper pill. Well, not everyone responds in such a simple way – and to turn the rules into black and white economics will bring into reality the fears of reform’s worst critics. Even the current insurance monopoly does not look at health care in such a simple and objectified manner.
What we are seeing here is a politician turning health care into something that politicians can deal with – perhaps to a great detriment of the people it is meant to help.

He is trying to do something that hasn’t been able to be accomplished by many past Presidents. Give him a little credit. Stand by your President.

Joan, if you have to scream then it means you aren’t thinking and that is what is going wrong in this debate. The facts are just simply not true that people are coming here for their surgeries etc unless it is an unusual one and there is no equivalent home grown one and that is rare. I was born and raised in Scotland and Canada and you simply do not know what you are talking about. You are taking the idiot rantings of the fringe right and buying it hook line and sinker. I hate to point this out, but take a look at the educational levels of the states where all of this vitriol is coming from. I live in the bluer regions of a Southern state,and believe me the difference between the average education and thoughtfulness is night and day. Part of what happens in education is learning how to pick apart and investigate what claims people make. It means having an open mind willing to question the credentials of those making them and the ability to change your mind when you see that the facts don’t support your position. Tell that to people who scream (all caps) on line and who make totally ridiculous accusations. My guess is that most of these people don’t even know what they are accusing Obama of. All they really know is that he is different from them and that is scary. But I challenge you, really listen to what John Boehner, Jim Sanford et al say, see who they really are working for and how they are going to help you. I believe if you really do that, you will find out that most of them have no interest in helping anyone making less than $150,000 a year and in fact, have an appalling lack of empathy for anyone not including their inability to tolerate truth. There is a huge difference between the vitriolic hatred these people spread and a true fiscal conservative.

I think there is a lot more to Obama’s potential in gutting Medicare than just Medicare advantage plans. That may just be the tip of the iceberg.
Obama began all of this with some serious talk about refusing to pay for hospital readmissions for Medicare within a certain period of time – that the hospitals needed to eat that cost, and it was incentive to do the job right in the first hospitalization. That is one scary concept of outright refusing to pay for seniors hospital readmissions! You know what the hospitals will do with that. They have no choice, and they will dump people right out the door.
I think all the right and left wing radicals are making so much noise that this battle is accelerating with misinformation. What they are accomplishing is to remove all real knowledge from the table. Instead it becomes a battle of who can scream the loudest.
Obama is a politician with some pretty outrageous ideas about how health care needs to be managed. He is so obsessed with the need to lower Medicare costs that he is making it central to his plan for overall health care. Well, someone needs to realize that we are not going to “change the curve” on health spending in the near future. Medicare spending needs to be considered separately too. There’s a lot that needs to be done and the studies so far have been crude at best.

The cuts to medicare, would amount to a shift of care for the aged, to care for the young, and is indeed, a shift to shoving the aged aside, and letting them die.
There is NO way around that.
This is a political decision to care not, about the aged, but to only care about the young.
Not very good public relations, nor a very decent ethical position to take, from my view.

Please ABC do a story on Senate bill 330/HR 684 which is a “govt-option” Medicare Part D prescription drug plan being pushed by socialist democrats. All seniors will ultimately lose their private part D plans and be forced onto the govt plan. Therefore, you’re medications and copays will all be dictated by the govt! This would be devastating to all our SENIORS!

The more power and control this administration takes over our seniors the more the seniors will be on bended knee to it. Let seniors have a voucher with their medicare dollars and let them buy what ever plan they want!

It is time to regulate the regulators! The Medicare Advantage plan isn’t the major culprit here. It is the hands and minds of a government that can screw it up, but can’t fix it! Republicans and Democrats together in unison are our greatest problem creators, but not the greatest problem solvers. And FYI, all the Bush and Obama haters must have real short memories.
How to fix it, I don’t know? Legislation for the sake of legislation isn’t the answer. There has to be an independent panel or group created with some of the most, intelligent, respected economic minds dedicated to solving the government’s wasteful spending, and a government dedicated to listening to reason and enactment of a sound economic plan for recovery. Tighten your belts.

I might point out that in order to gain support for his HRC, he has to create the fear in seniors of losing their MA
plan coverages. More of the fear mongering tactics. I spent months mulling over all of the choices offered by Medicare and chose a Medicare Advantage plan offered in my area. I’m on a fixed income and don’t have a lot for extra medical costs, but I need as much of what I have left to be able to survive all of the economic downturns.

Medical Advantage plans ARE GOVERNMENT plans.
They are PAID FOR BY THE US GOVERNMENT.
I get so tired of selfish senior citizens talking against public health, because their “plan” takes care of them when “medicare” doesn’t.
IT’S ALL MEDICARE Part A, Part B and Part D.
Advantage plans take your premiums and repackage the benefits BASED ON MEDICARE’s minimums, but they count on the Fed. Government to gaurantee a profit.

Mary, Mary, Mary…just another excuse to blame GB and 8 years. How is it that this country was ruined in 8 short years? Short years for short memories!
GW wasn’t the first and BO won’t be the last. Stand up and accept some of the heat yourself. Have all of your choices been big winners? NO, and niether have mine!

Jonathan,
Get your facts straight. Medicare Part D was George Bush’s great plan to make sure insurance companies were able to get their hands on senior health care and health care for people with disabilities. Once this happened the Insurance companies began to determine what kind of care, how much care, what Dr., hospital or clinic you could visit, what medications they would approve. Prior to Bush’s Medicare part D it was between the Dr. and patient. I’ve worked with these plans for 30 years, have you?? My vote is for a government option, it works. Seniors don’t let someone twisting the truth scare you!!!

The simple fact is that if Obama can make bone-hitting cuts to Medicare now, he can continue to do so in the future. He has already made big statements about eliminating payments for re-hospitalization within a certain period of times. This is the kind of cut that will kill people.
Proof positive is the fact that the “public option plan” as outlined stops at age 65. At that point, everyone gets moved to Medicare which is far inferior coverage. If the proponents for a public option really believed in what they were doing, they would allow seniors to enroll if they wanted to pay the premiums.
So what are we going to have – a system that gives you a certain level of coverage until age 65 – and then you get thrown to the wolves with not private insurance available (Medicare has already eliminated all private competition).
FYI, Medicare Part B is not free – not by a long shot. Medicare part D can cost even more. The only free coverage seniors get at 65 is Medicare Part A which is hospital coverage.

Unless you are on Medicare Advantage, you do not have the right to critize the plan.—-really? It is subsidized
by taxpayers.

Gordon: Its just a bunch of people who have not yet had the chance to realize that the world is not going to fit their ideal. When they grow up, they will figure it out. Profit is essential to this country and to health care.

My wife and I have a MA plan are are quite happy with it. If we have to go to a Medicare/Suppl/Plan D, it will cost $300 more monthly. That 14% higher figure for MA vis-a-vis Medicare is not accurate-more like 3%. I think AARP would be happy if MA plans go away since they have surely lost a great deal of money due to cancellation or non-enrollment in their supplement.

Hi George-YOU HAVE A NEW FAN!! Just caught you because I wanted to see the many interviews the President was giving and you impressed me because you didn’t spoon-feed the usual soft-ball questions to him. Way to press about the new taxes and also Medicare Advantage! My daughter and I have worked with MA since it came out four years ago and he is not being truthful—people will not have equal coverage with Medicare and to say it is “Just as good if not better” is completely false. Beneficiaries WILL lose what they have. It is not the “same level of benefits”.
Medicare does not pay for a yearly physical; MA gives a physical for NO COPAY. Also MA is required by law to give mammograms, paps and pelvics, colorectal screenings, prostate cancer checks, etc., for NO COPAY where Medicare requires a deductible and the client pays 20% of the cost of services. Original Medicare has been slow to get up to speed on “free” preventative care. Many MA companies also give free health club memberships so that people will exercise and stay healthier. Some of the plans are for “special needs” people with diabetes, heart attack, stroke victims, etc. that have lots of preventative care to keep people healthier so they don’t escalate in their illnesses which saves money. The plans I work with are all zero premium. Now you can see why people are absolutely and rightfully very concerned. Thanks for a great show and I will “see” you next week!

Sounds to me by this , what is going on is some HMO’s and Insurance Co’s basically have found a way to charge up to 18% more for some serverices by doing a “fancy Trick like” packaging. Therefor if the Gov’t stops paying for the sugar coated effect and just pays for the plain old regular procerdure, the medicare client will still get the good care needed and the savings can be redistributed to funding the drug program allowing more drug coverage and hopefully keep people from the “donut hole effect”. Where the subsidy on the cost runs out and the senior is paying full price. Could be a good thing as Long as this is Truth, not a Lie.

Whether you are on Medicare Advantage or regular Medicare you are on the “government dole”. Call it what you like. The reality is that no matter what plan you are on or how this “reform” happens, your medical care will be rationed in one form or another in order to keep this program viable. Medicare is a “public option” and competes with MA plans right now and all you are concerned about is already happening in both plans.

Congress own budgets leader has contradicted Obama on the Medicare cuts, saying that it will lead to 500 Billion in cut benefits to seniors.
I think that should make it pretty clear, that we aren’t getting straight talk from Obama.

There is less fraud in the medicare advantage program than in medicare and the efficiency in the medicare advantage program is much better than medicare.

It is this simple if you have original Medicare and you go to the emergency room you pay 30% of the bill with Medicare Advantage you pay $50.00 which on would you preferrer. Our sr. should be treated with respect plain and simple. Dem have never like the program so they are playing partisain politics to harm the program. Same on them and Obama.

The country is not broke its just going to the big wigs and taken away from the little people just the opposite of what Obama said during his election. He likes being in front of the camera smiling and waving. Hes not a president he is a celebrity. He will never get my vote again he is a big disappointment

as a 71 year old American Citizen and a lifetime Democrat. I can tell you I will never vote for a Democrat again. This President lies more than Spiro Agnew in fact they may have the same Mother. We should forget that the man is Black,and Impeach him for all his lies and be aware that he dispises senior citizens and wants to return the United States to the way it used to be number 2 in the world in the treatment of Seniors second only to South America.Sad sad sad the guy is a phony.

Oh my,far more foil hat wearers then ever.
Talk about the conspiracy theorist,do any of you look up facts anymore or just listen to commentators,who are NOT journalists nor do commentators have any rules regarding fact checking.
Commentators offer opinion,not facts.

Why doesnt Obama just tell the truth, and that truth is cutting MA plans will cut benefits Why is that so hard? Yes, they get more money than regular Medicare, but when you cut something payments, then the benefits decrease, or the plans go away TELL THE TRUTH OBAMA, stop the spin machine

Obama is lying! Medicare Advantage provides many additional benefits for enrollees. This includes eyglasses, hearing aid and dental programs as well as many preventive programs such as Silver Sneakers. If payments to the Medicare Advantage plans are cut so will the benefits. Regular Medicare does not offer these extra plans and charges considerably highter doctor and hospital copays so if Medicare Advantage is eliminated seniors will loose the benefits offered by Medicare Advantage! Obama is a slick one, he is very misleading and mis-speaks often. Normal people call this lying!

There is no money in making people healthier. For all of you that think the government rule the country, think again. The corporations with the most money are the ones with the power. AKA drug companies. You can’t patent anything that nature made, so you have to alter an atom here and there and then you can patent it, and sell it as a drug. Sure the alterations will cause sideeffects because your body doesnt know how to deal with something that is not out of this world, but the drug will block the symptom (a symptom is the way for your body to tell you are doing something wrong in the way you eat, drink, exercise, take in toxins, rest, thought patterns, or something is structurally wrong and you may have nerve interference) a symptom is NOT telling you that you need a man made drug. Obama should have insurance cover gym memberships, massage, life coaching, vitamins, fishoil, organic food, chiropractic visits, physical therapy, and emergency care such as broken bones or accute symptoms. Yes, it is easier to take a symptom blocking pill than it is to exercise for thirty minutes on most days, eat organic fruits and vegetables everyday, avoid sugar, quit smoking, quit alcohol, get adjustments and massage, conquer negative thought patters with the help of a life coach, sleep 8 hours a night. And don’t let the pharmaceutical industry tell you you are supposed to have a certain illness because your parents or grandparents did. I encourage everyone to take the responsibility of their health in their own hands. This is the “secret” to longevity and living life at 100%.

If anyone believes that Medicare without the Advantage Plans is good and fully adequate is either ignorant or stupid. I know it hurts for some media dependent people to actually read, but just for your edification try reading the readily available “side-by-side” comparisons of Medicare with and without the Advantage plans. IF YOU ACTUALLY READ THESE COMPARISONS YOU WILL SEE THAT YOU WILL GO BROKE, BANKRUPT, OR WORSE WITHOUT THE ADVANTAGE PLAN. By the way, why don’t we question the cost of medical supplies, doctor fees, etc? Expensive doesn’t even come close to describing the costs (45 minute routine ear surgery @ $9000 for the doctor, $22,000 for the hospital, etc.) Sorry Docs, NOBODY is worth that kind of money. My non-profit BC/BS Alabama Blue Advantage Plan costs me $0 per month and reduces payments to these providers and cuts some of the cost of their outrageous claims. By the way, I’m disabled and not a senior, so think twice if you believe you are immune from this issue. If people really want real change stop paying drugstores, pharmaceuticals, doctors, hospitals,etc. the unrealistic charges that will bankrupt the majority and make millionaires out of a few.

I have heard all of the comments about President Obama and have come to the conclusion that all the rhetoric is not about the man but about the color of his skin. We are so hard on him about every policy he stands for. We complain about him not getting the economy back on track – who got the economy in the shape its in? It will take President Obama a lifetime to straighten out the mess the former administration left. We complain about the money he’s spending – what about the money the former president spent? At least President Obama is spending it trying to help the people in the U.S., the former president was sending all the money he was spending to other countries. I think its time to give our president some slack, stand behind him and help try to get this country back on track.
There is a real need for healthcare reform. Insurance companies, doctors and health care facilities are all benefitting from federal funds and the elderly and the poor people are the ones that are being left out. And the rich just keep on getting richer.

Obama only talks about how the insurance companies will not have as much if Medicare Advantage is cut—carefully avoiding how current members will see their low montly premiums skyrocket as a result.

Nothing like dodging the question…why can’t he just say…Yes we are cutting Medicare!

Hey, George, why didn’t you ask obama about us saving 3,000% on our health insurance premiums? That would mean that the gov’t would owe me over $240K a year if this health care bill passes. If you don’t believe me that obama made this statement, then go and read the transcript from yesterday campaign speech he gave in Ohio. But you can’t ask him any tough questions can you. Why didn’t you ask obama about his promise that ALL federal employees including Congress would be on this gov’t run plan? Or did obama forget that there is a provision in this bill that exempts members of Congress from joining this plan that the tax payers will be forced to join. Yep, obama is a liar.

REPUBLICANS hear this!!!!!When you regain control of Congress and I assure you that is going to happen in Nov., bring all of Obama’s corrupt cronies before every committee that you can and make them tell the lies they surely will tell and then perk walk the whole lying corrupt crowd straight to a cell with the Islamic terrorists we captured because these democrats are not much better with the terror they are bringing on the retired citizens by cutting the devil out of their earned medicare and giving it as an entitlement to those who have never worked and never will, thanks to Obama.

Come on folks. Does anyone know the difference between mark up and profit? If Medicare pays the advantage insuror a 16% “overpayment reimbursement” how does that become a 16% profit. The sixteen percent reimburses the insuror for his overhead (things like claims reps, offices, telephones, postage, millions and millions of dollars in needed equipment, etc., etc., etc. What is left over from the 16% after all those expenses would be the profit. Oh, by the way, when the advantage insuror does all of the work Medicare does not have to. The SAVINGS to Medicare are tremendous by having a private contractor, not a government employee do the work. Kind of like the Postal Service and UPS. Which one is more efficient? Anyone who answers the Postal Service is a left winger beyond redemption.

There is so much wrong information in this New story I can’t follow the questions.
First of all Obama Knows nothing about the Advantage plans. He said they are HMO’s when there are HMO,PPO, FFS and Special needs plans for the poor diabled and in rest homes.
Numbers can be based on many factors and can show paying more rather than less. Fraud and abuse and the fact that CMS does not handle claims is also a factor on cost savings. What we need is a level playing field . States have gone to these plans for Medicaid and have saved themselves billions.Even liberal California assignes a Person to a Plan rather than have them on straight Medicaid aka Medical.

WONDERFUL post.