A Washington Post article this morning refers to plans to cut back the payments to private insurers operating in the Medicare Advantage program in order to pay for an extension of the State Children Health Insurance Program. The bill would reduce the payment to the cost of paying for beneficiaries within the traditional Medicare program. While the excess payment has been identified by both the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office and the Medicare Payments Advisory Commission, the article asserts that cuts would be to what "Democrats call overpayments to managed care companies." It would have been helpful to point out that it is not just Democrats who have pointed out these excess payments.
--Dean Baker
