Time to End Taxpayer Rebates to Health Care Insurance Industry
The National Retiree Legislative Network (NRLN) and most Americans support competition from private healthcare plans and the NRLN understands the financial challenges ahead for Medicare and the federal budget. However, we do not support bonus and rebate subsidies or anti-competitive restrictions placed on original Medicare Fee-for-Service (FFS) just to preserve the notion that private insurance plans may be more cost effective or provide better care than FFS, when the record shows they are not and do not.
The number of over-age 65 U.S. retirees will grow 25%, from 60 to 75 million between now and 2030 and to 100 million by 2060. Baby boomers are a small piece of the puzzle; they are all over age 65 by 2030 and by 2060 only 3 million remain. Total Medicare healthcare costs will grow 101%, from $796 billion to $1.7 trillion from 2019 to 2030. We are an aging country. However, Medicare Trustee Reports and U.S. Census data reveals that, healthcare costs are rising four (4) times faster than Medicare enrollees. – MEDICARE HEALTHCARE COSTS PER ENROLLEE ARE OUT OF CONTROL!
There are four realities that can’t be denied: 1) healthcare costs are rising four times faster than Medicare enrollees, 2) private plan Medicare market share rose by 2% to a 43.1% (to 27.4 million enrollees) in 2021, enough sales to reel in $370 billion revenue, 3) after 24 years, despite gobbling up over $450 billion in taxpayer rebates, the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) payments per Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollee increased to 103% of payments made to original Medicare FFS enrollees in 2020 and to 104% in 2021, 4) with MA plan market share at 43.1% it’s time to realize subsidized growth can no longer be justified!
For more details, read our White Paper on Time to End Taxpayer Rebates to Private Health Insurance Industry.
