2014
As we all know, the Affordable Care Act authorizes reductions in payments to Medicare Advantage Plans, Part C. Some of these cuts may be justified, but it appears the Obama Administration is going farther than recommended. When you hear Sen Schumer is concerned, you better be concerned if you are enrolled in a Part C plan. The goal, of course, is to save money. The unmentioned goal may be to drive more people back into traditional 
Medicare and out of the private insurance plans.
In any case, cutting payments to insurers eventually leads to one thing; cost shifting to beneficiaries. This means higher premiums, a reduction in benefits and higher out -of- pocket costs. You can only squeeze a balloon so long before it pops, even if you are the Obama Administration.
Excerpt from New York Times By ROBERT PEARFEB. 21, 2014
Federal payments to managed-care organizations, known as Medicare Advantage plans, are based on a complicated formula that reflects how much it costs to care for Medicare beneficiaries, and those costs have been growing much more slowly than in the past. Experts often focus on the benchmarks used to calculate changes in Medicare payments to private plans. The administration proposed to reduce these benchmarks by 1.9 percent in 2015. Other factors in the formula will deepen the cuts.
A bipartisan group of 19 Democrats and 21 Republicans in the Senate sent a letter last week urging the administration to keep payments at current levels.
People in the private plans “enjoy better health outcomes and receive higher quality care than their counterparts” in traditional Medicare, said the letter, drafted by Senators Charles E. Schumer of New York, the No. 3 Senate Democrat, and Michael D. Crapo, Republican of Idaho.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 