Medpac advises Congress on the Medicare program. They wield a great deal of influence, so I alway take a close look at what they have to say as they can influence Legislation. Here is their Press Release.
On the press release, pay special attention to the paragraphs on the second page which talk about “Benefit Design in Traditional Medicare” and “Medicare Advantage Payments”.
Here is a link to the 275 page report. At some point, I’ll review the report and make some comments.
I’m particularly closely looking at what they have to say about “Secondary Insurance” (which we call Med Supp) as the Senate Finance Committee seemed to be indicating that Plan F’s tend to increase Medicare claims utilization. This could be problematic for Med Supp longer term. On the positive side, Med Supp seems to be working quite well and has an extremely high satisfaction rating from it’s insureds, so it may be difficult for Congress to mettle with Med Supp.
The report also talks a lot about ACO’s or Accountable Care Organizations. I blogged on this a couple times. To find my past articles, type, “ACO” into the search box on this blog in the upper right!
