Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Deane Beebe
Communications Director
212-204-6219
Medicare Rights CenterMay 2, 2006
Statement on Reports that Medicare is Going "Broke" Below is a statement from the Medicare Rights Center regarding the Medicare trustees' report about the financial health of the Medicare program.
“Medicare is the solution to our soaring health care costs, not the problem. Congressional and administration priorities to forbid the government from negotiating drug prices with the pharmaceutical industry for the Part D drug benefit and to continue to overpay the private health plans that deliver Medicare benefits are needlessly siphoning money from Medicare.
"This failure to recognize that private health insurers can neither contain health care costs as effectively as the government or guarantee people the coverage they need keeps the United States spending twice as much on overall health care costs as other developed countries, while leaving millions uninsured and underinsured. Responsible leadership would meet the health care needs of people with Medicare—and all Americans—efficiently and directly through an extension of Medicare to all Americans.”
For more information, see the following reports from the Medicare Rights Center:
- Why is the Privatized Part D Drug Benefit a Disaster? (PDF)
- Overpayments to Private Plans in Medicare: $4.7 Billion in 2005; $83 Billion 2004-2014
- Medicare Private Plan Overpayments: An Anti-Competitive Practice that Hurts Medicare
- Medicare: A National Treasure for Forty Years (PDF)
The Medicare Rights Center, founded in 1989, is the largest independent source of information and assistance on health care rights and benefits for older and disabled men and women in the United States. For more information about MRC, call 212-204-6219, or visit the MRC web site: www.medicarerights.org.