Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Deane Beebe
Communications Director
212-204-6219
Medicare Rights CenterMay 22, 2007
Statement by Robert M. Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center, on Congressional actions that would put an end to Medicare private health plans’ abusive marketing practices, particularly private fee-for-service plans which are paid 19 percent more than the cost for someone with Original Medicare:
“To protect people with Medicare, Congress must establish clear and enforceable safeguards against abusive and deceptive marketing practices. Congress must also permit state governments to vigorously enforce these standards: the Bush Administration has failed wretchedly to police private health plans and protect people with Medicare.
“Congress should establish minimum benefit standards for all private health plans, standardize the benefit packages to facilitate consumer comparison and remove special exemptions for private fee-for-service plans. The most egregious of these exemptions prevents the federal government from reviewing private fee-for-service benefit packages to ensure that they fairly and equitably reflect Medicare payments.
“Overpayments to private health plans should be cut. Only plans that efficiently and compassionately provide coordinated care to people with Medicare serve the public good.”
The Medicare Rights Center describes the typical problems encountered by private health plan members and cites case examples gleaned from thousands of calls to the group’s national consumer hotlines in its recent report Too Good to Be True: The Fine Print in Medicare Private Health Plan Benefits which is available on the national consumer group’s website at http://www.medicarerights.org/MA_care_problems.pdf.
In After the Goldrush: The Marketing of Medicare Advantage and Part D Plans, Regulatory Oversight of Insurance Companies and Agents Inadequate to Protect Medicare Beneficiaries, the Medicare Rights Center and the California Health Advocates, a nonprofit organization dedicated to Medicare beneficiary advocacy and education efforts for Californians, detail the unscrupulous sales practices of insurers and call for heightened government oversight of private insurers selling Medicare health and drug plans. This report is available at http://www.medicarerights.org/CHA-MRC-brief_goldrush.pdf.