Federal investigators released a report in which they say that Medicare is risking money on an experimental program. The program cost $8B and rewards the providers of not so satisfactory health care services. Tests showed that it is not quite likely to have positive results with the program, so the $8B is just being wasted.
The report, which will officially be issued today by the Government Accountability Office, which is Congress nonpartisan investigative arm, wants the Obama administration to terminate the program. The Medicare program pays rewards to those health insurance companies that care for millions of healthcare beneficiaries. Of course, the millions of healthcare beneficiaries are all Medicare patients.
The project is being sustained and even defended by administration officials who refuse to cancel it, motivating that the program could lead to an improvement of the healthcare services offered to old Americans.
This problem started with the 2012 health care law that authorized bonus payments to high quality health care providers. The Congress cut the Medicare payments that were being done for managed care plans, but the bonuses have been authorized instead. Investigators soon discovered that the bonuses were not being paid to high quality health care providers, but to “average performing plans”. Each of these plans was less than the Congress’s benchmarks.
The report also says that the Medicare project will cost around $8.3 billion over the next ten years. 80% of this cost would occur in the first 3 years, while the rest of 20% would occur in the following 7 years. Federal Investigators are trying to establish whether or not Medicare officials have been authorized to perform the program’s changes.
Orrin Hatch, Utah Senator and the Finance Committee senior Republican and Rep. Dave Camp, the Ways and Means Committee chairman declared that the investigation’s results suggest an authority abuse coming from Medicare officials. Hatch and Camp also said that they are very concerned and worried about the government might be implicated in the entire issue, using taxpayer dollars in order to hide the huge impacts of the cuts that have been done in the Medicare Advantage program. Government Accountability Office representatives say that besides the huge budget impact, the program is so poorly designed, that its creators will never know whether or not it actually leads to improved care services.
The Medicare Advantage plans have been cut through the health care law because it was discovered that the plans were being overpaid. More than 12 million people chose the Medicare Advantage plans.
