G.A.O. Calls Test Project by Medicare Costly Waste

[alp227]

Last edited Mon Apr 23, 2012, 06:33 PM - Edit history (1)

Source: NYT

Medicare is wasting more than $8 billion on an experimental program that rewards providers of mediocre health care and is unlikely to produce useful results, federal investigators say in a new report.

The report, to be issued Monday by the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, urges the Obama administration to cancel the program, which pays bonuses to health insurance companies caring for millions of Medicare beneficiaries.

Administration officials, however, defended the project and said they would not cancel it because it could improve the quality of care for older Americans.

In the 2010 health care law, Congress cut Medicare payments to managed care plans, known as Medicare Advantage, and authorized bonus payments to those that provide high-quality care. Investigators found that most of the money paid under the demonstration program went to “average-performing plans” rated lower than the benchmarks set by Congress.

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/health/policy/gao-says-medicare-test-project-is-wasting-8-billion.html

[saras]

1. It does, unfortunately, look like a badly designed money giveaway...

...but dismantling it will have a real impact on some people, who are unlikely to have any other program take up the slack.

They should have designed it better in the first place - now someone has to get screwed, it's just a question of who.

[Festivito]

2. Clickable link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/04/23/health/policy/gao-says-medicare-test-project-is-wasting-8-billion.html

[underpants]

3. Med Advantage was simply a pay off to private providers letting them into the Medicare

it was part of the pay off for them not pouring money into lobbying against health care reform.

Much like the individual mandate it was a demand from the private providers