Rep. Stark, Sen. Kerry Introduce Bill to Provide Medicare Beneficiaries Better Value for Their Medigap Premium Dollars

Congressman Pete Stark
Press Release, July 26, 2011

Today, Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) and Sen. John Kerry (D-MA) introduced the Medigap Medical Loss Ratio Improvement Act. The legislation improves consumer protections in the Medigap marketplace by raising the minimum percentage of premium dollars that must go toward medical care, not executive compensation or administrative costs. This percentage is called the medical loss ratio (MLR).

Under current law, Medigap insurers are required to meet an MLR of only 65 percent in the individual marketplace and 75 percent in the group market. The Medigap Medical Loss Ratio Improvement Act would require Medigap insurance plans to spend at least 85 percent of every premium dollar on medical care in the group market and 80 percent in the individual market.

http://www.stark.house.gov/index.php?option=com_content&view=article&id=2260:press-release-stark-kerry-introduce-bill-to-provide-medicare-beneficiaries-better-value-for-their-medigap-premium-dollars&catid=82:press-releases-2011&Itemid=62

And…

The Hill
July 26, 2011

The insurance industry opposes Kerry and Stark’s bill.

The healthcare law’s MLR requirements didn’t extend to Medigap because it’s a form of supplemental coverage, said Robert Zirkelbach, a spokesman for America’s Health Insurance Plans.

As supplements, Medigap plans collect lower premiums than comprehensive policies, but the administrative costs aren’t necessarily lower. Extending the 80 to 85 percent MLR standards to Medigap would disrupt coverage with which seniors are satisfied, Zirkelbach said.

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/health-insurance/173623-aarp-backs-bill-to-extend-new-rules-on-insurers-spending

Medigap policies are private plans that supplement Medicare coverage. They are quite popular because of the exposure that Medicare beneficiaries have to relatively high out-of-pocket expenses. They also represent one of the worst values in private insurance because of their very low medical loss ratios (a low percentage of of the premiums collected is spent on actual health care).

Rep. Pete Stark and Sen. John Kerry have introduced the Medigap Medical Loss Ratio Improvement Act (HR 2645 and S 1416) to bring the Medigap medical loss ratios up to the same level as other private plans under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. Individual Medigap plans will have to spend at least 80 percent of the premium on health care, and group Medigap plans at least 85 percent.

To no surprise, the insurance industry is opposed, and understandably so. In order to calculate the supplemental benefits to be paid under the Medigap plans, the insurers must still process all services, most of which are paid by Medicare, thereby involving the same administrative effort as comprehensive plans. Also, their marketing costs are similar to their comprehensive private plans. Thus their administrative costs and profits are proportionately much higher considering the small amount paid out in supplemental benefits.

The insurers are really in a bind. They can’t reduce their administrative services, yet, because the plans are only supplements, they can’t pay out much more in benefits. Requiring the same medical loss ratios as apply to comprehensive plans would likely destroy the Medigap model, and insurers would have to withdraw these plans.

That would be good since these plans are such a terrible value no matter how you cut it. But we have to keep in mind why these plans exist. Medicare benefits are inadequate, leaving beneficiaries exposed to excessive costs. To eliminate this wasteful private industry of Medigap plans, the appropriate solution would be to reduce or preferably eliminate the out-of-pocket cost sharing of Medicare.

Although that reintroduces the “moral hazard” issue of “free” health care, other nations have shown that comprehensive “free” health care can be provided at much lower costs than ours. If we’re going to talk about morality, then we should ask, what is moral about injecting an expensive, superfluous, worthless industry into our health care?

This legislation is important because it identifies the problem of excessive administrative waste, which adds even more to our very high health care costs. But rather than this bill, we really do need an improved Medicare for all.

Medicare beneficiaries struggling with prescription drug coverage

By Julian Pecquet
The Hill, July 25, 2011

Five years after the launch of Medicare prescription drug coverage, many beneficiaries are still struggling to sign up, according to a new report from the Medicare Rights Center.

The report highlights how hard it is for beneficiaries to choose among “a multitude of plans that have different benefit structures, pharmacy networks, formularies and rules for accessing benefits.”

“This report reinforces what we hear time and again on our helpline,” center President Joe Baker said in a statement. “The Part D plan selection process is enough to make many beneficiaries and their loved ones throw up their arms in surrender. People simply want to be able to find and enroll in the drug plan that is right for them, without getting stuck in a morass of indistinguishable plan options.”

http://thehill.com/blogs/healthwatch/medicare/173345-medicare-beneficiaries-struggle-with-prescription-drug-coverage

“People simply want to be able to find and enroll in the drug plan that is right for them, without getting stuck in a morass of indistinguishable plan options.” No. People simply want to have the drugs that they need when they need them.

The Part D drug plan should have been created as a straightforward benefit of Medicare. The program should have been funded equitably through the tax system, and the benefit should have been simply to be able to obtain necessary drugs whenever prescribed. But no.

Congress decided to interject a separate, expensive, administratively complex industry into the picture – a market of competing drug plans. Not only do these entities waste resources, they establish even more barriers to access to the drugs patients need – barriers such as formulary exclusions, tiering of drugs, prior authorization requirements, exclusion of pharmacies from the plan networks, not to mention the complexities of trying to select from a hodgepodge of plans with widely different characteristics.

The obvious solution would be to establish a single payer national health program in which pharmaceuticals are a full, unencumbered benefit. That’s as obvious as, say, when you need the debt limit raised, you simply vote to raise the debt limit. But Congress doesn’t seem to be capable of making obvious choices.

The Impact of Single-Payer Health Care on Physician Income in Canada, 1850–2005

By Jacalyn Duffin, MD, PhD
American Journal of Public Health, July 2011

Over nearly 60 years, into the 21st century, physician income grew at a rate of increase that outpaced that of other Canadians. Since 1958 through the advent of medicare, until at least 1992 and probably into the present, physicians, as a professional category, were the top earners in the country.

In 2005, US doctors earned about five-and-a-half times the US GDP per capita; Canadian doctors earned about four times their country’s GDP per capita.

The observation that Canadian physicians are paid less than their American counterparts invites us to ask, what do Canadians “get” in exchange for paying their physicians less than their American counterparts? A 1990 study showed that, although per capita expenditures on health in the United States were higher than those in Canada, the actual number of services was fewer. In other words, Canadian citizens were getting more and spending less.

From this research, we observe that even when the readjustments resulting from various policy and payment alterations are taken into account, Canadian medicare did not lead to a loss in physician income. Rather, physician incomes grew more quickly than those of other Canadians and are considerably greater. In short, the medical-income argument against moving toward a Canadian-style system is feeble.

The universal, single-payer system has been good not only for Canadians but also for their doctors.

http://ajph.aphapublications.org/cgi/content/abstract/101/7/1198

The experience with single payer in Canada has revealed that not only were physicians’ incomes not harmed, physicians remain the top earners in the country. This article should allay the fears of U.S. physicians who would like to see us achieve a health care system that ensures quality health care for all but who remain apprehensive that their incomes might be adversely affected. As this report states, “The universal, single-payer system has been good not only for Canadians but also for their doctors.”

Problems of U.S. Health Care Are Rooted in the Private Sector, Despite Right-Wing Claims

By Mark Weisbrot
McClatchy-Tribune Information Services, July 20, 2011

Right-wingers, insurance companies, and other opponents of health care reform in the United States are always looking for ways to blame the government for the failures of our health care system. But the simple truth is that they have it backwards: our problems with health care are firmly rooted in the private sector. That is why the average high-income country – where government is vastly more involved in health care – spends half as much per person on health care as we do, and has better health outcomes.

That is why even Medicare – which has to pay for health care services and drugs at costs inflated by our dysfunctional private health care sector – has still proven to be much more efficient than private insurance.

The most effective way to insure everyone and make our health care system affordable would have been to expand Medicare to everyone, while beginning the process of reducing costs through negotiation with, and restructuring incentives for, the private sector. The private insurance companies use up hundreds of billions annually on administrative costs, marketing, and other waste – which is what you would expect from companies who maximize profit by insuring the healthy and trying to avoid paying for the sick.

It remains to be seen whether the PPACA will be a step toward more comprehensive, effective reform that gives us Medicare for all. In the meantime, the right will try to blame the government and the legislation itself for rising health care costs and other failures of our health care system. But in fact these result from the legislation not having gone far enough to rein in the private sector.

(Mark Weisbrot is co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research, in Washington, D.C.)

http://www.cepr.net/index.php/op-eds-&-columns/op-eds-&-columns/problems-of-us-health-care-are-rooted-in-the-private-sector-despite-right-wing-claims

When it seems that we are making so little progress on the reform front, it is reassuring to see that PNHP and our single payer colleagues are not alone in spreading the Medicare for all message.

Evidence Links Increases In Public Health Spending To Declines In Preventable Deaths

By Glen P. Mays, and Sharla A. Smith
Health Affairs, July 21, 2011

Public health activities in the United States are supported through a patchwork of funding sources and financing arrangements that vary widely across states and communities and that are relatively unstable over time. These arrangements result in large geographic differences in spending for public health activities, even among communities with relatively similar population characteristics and health needs.

At the state level, per capita public health spending varied by a factor of more than thirty in 2010, ranging from a low of less than $4 in Nevada to a high of more than $171 in Hawaii. Local variation in public health spending was even larger, ranging from less than $1 per capita to more than $200 per capita in 2008.

Communities with larger increases in public health spending experienced larger reductions in mortality from leading preventable causes of death over a thirteen-year period. This relationship was consistent across several different mortality measures, and it persisted after accounting for differences in demographic and socioeconomic characteristics, medical resources, and unobserved community characteristics that jointly influence spending and health.

Although our study does not establish a definitive causal link between spending and mortality because of the observational research design we used, it nevertheless provides compelling evidence that differences in public health investments may contribute to differences in community health outcomes.

http://content.healthaffairs.org/content/early/2011/07/19/hlthaff.2011.0196.abstract

This study is just a reminder that population health involves much more than just the interaction between patients and their health care professionals and institutions. The importance of the public role is undeniable. It’s too bad that our politicians don’t seem to understand that.

Medigap Reforms: Potential Effects of Benefit Restrictions on Medicare Spending and Beneficiary Costs

By Mark Merlis
Kaiser Family Foundation, July 2011

Among the many proposals under consideration to control the growth in Medicare spending is one that attempts to achieve savings by restricting coverage under Medigap plans to require enrollees to pay a larger share of the costs of Medicare-covered services.

Medicare by itself has relatively high deductibles, and imposes coinsurance for most covered services. Moreover, Medicare does not have any limit on total cost sharing, exposing some beneficiaries to large out-of-pocket (OOP) costs. Medigap policies help cover some or all of Medicare’s cost-sharing requirements. Some analysts contend that comprehensive “first dollar” coverage from Medigap leads enrollees to obtain unnecessary services, which results in excess Medicare spending.

This brief examines the potential effects of three different Medigap reform proposals on Medicare program spending and on beneficiaries’ out-of-pocket costs.

Medigap reforms would have a disproportionately negative impact on enrollees with modest incomes, in relatively poor health, and those with any inpatient hospital utilization. Under all three options, a greater share of beneficiaries reporting fair or poor health than those in better health would experience an increase in total out-of-pocket costs, because their premium savings would not be enough to offset their new spending for direct cost-sharing. Under Options 1 and 2, more than one-third of all Medigap enrollees in fair or poor health would experience a net increase in premiums and other out-of-pocket costs for Medicare covered services, as compared to less than one-fifth of those in relatively good health. Because those in relatively poor health use more services than healthier enrollees, the increase in their direct cost-sharing expenses for Medicare-covered services would more than offset any premium reduction.

Enrollees facing higher net costs are disproportionately those in fair or poor health, those requiring inpatient hospital care, and those with modest incomes. Even enrollees who do not actually see an increase in their total costs could be thought of as suffering a “welfare loss.” Beneficiaries buy comprehensive insurance in part for the peace of mind of knowing that they are fully protected against unpredictable events. They may see the loss of this protection as outweighing any potential premium savings.

http://www.kff.org/medicare/upload/8208.pdf

Two days ago we discussed the negative impact of requiring deductibles for Medigap plans – a proposal designed to reduce the moral hazard of insurance (the propensity to obtain more care if it is free at the time of access). This KFF study is timely because it confirms that requiring Medigap cost sharing “would have a disproportionately negative impact on enrollees with modest incomes, in relatively poor health, and those with any inpatient hospital utilization.” Further, even if eliminating cost sharing does not have a net financial benefit, it does provide a “welfare gain” by providing beneficiaries with “the peace of mind of knowing that they are fully protected against unpredictable events.”

FAQ: Seniors May See Changes in Medigap Policies

By Julie Appleby
Kaiser Health News, July 15, 2011

What is Medigap and why do people buy it?

Unlike most job-based health insurance, traditional Medicare does not include “catastrophic” coverage, an annual maximum upper limit on the amount beneficiaries could pay. So enrollees can be liable for thousands of dollars each year, including: $1,132 per-episode deductible for hospital admissions; hundreds of dollars in daily charges for hospital stays of longer than 60 days; a $162-a-year deductible for doctor care, plus 20 percent of charges for office visits or equipment like wheelchairs.

Ten standardized types of supplemental plans offered by private insurers – including AARP’s UnitedHealthcare policies  – cover all or most of such deductibles and copayments.  Some employers also pay all or part of such costs for their retirees.

What changes are under consideration?

It is not clear exactly what’s on the table in the negotiations between congressional leaders and the White House.  But the charts  released show that one such proposal under consideration would bar insurers from offering supplemental policies unless the policies came with an annual deductible. People who didn’t want a deductible could pay $530 a year in additional premium to ensure that they won’t be hit with costs before their coverage kicks in.

What about people who don’t have a Medigap plan?

Only about 10 percent of seniors don’t have some sort of supplemental coverage. Some people have military/VA benefits, others are in Medicaid, and some have coverage through Medicare Advantage plans, which are insurance policies offered by private insurers as an alternative to traditional Medicare.

Would changing supplemental coverage save money?

Some economists and policy experts say that supplemental coverage insulates beneficiaries from medical costs, driving up demand for unnecessary care. A study done for MedPAC in 2009 found that beneficiaries with supplemental insurance used more care and cost the program more money. The increased spending wasn’t for emergency hospitalizations, but for other services such as elective hospital admissions, preventive care, doctor office visits and some types of tests.

What else do people say about the idea?

Advocacy groups like the Medicare Rights Center oppose restricting Medigap plans, saying it would simply shift more costs from the government to elderly and low-income people who can least afford it. “Some in government feel people in Medicare don’t have enough ‘skin in the game,’” says Ilene Stein, federal policy director for the center. In fact, she says, people on Medicare already pay 15 percent of their incomes for health care, well above the level paid by non-Medicare households. While the proposals would cap maximum annual spending per enrollee to $5,500 or $7,500, “that’s a lot of money for someone making $22,000,” the median household income for those on Medicare, she says.

http://www.kaiserhealthnews.org/Stories/2011/July/15/medigap-medicare-supplemental-faq.aspx

And…

Exploring the Effects of Secondary Coverage on Medicare Spending for the Elderly

Study by Direct Research, LLC
For the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC)
June 2009

Our results show that secondary insurance has a substantial impact on Medicare spending, consistent with the prior literature in this area. After removing beneficiaries with any VA use and adjusting for differences in health status, income, education, and demographics, individuals with Medigap coverage had Medicare costs 33 percent higher than those with no secondary insurance. Other private secondary insurance was associated with smaller increases in spending. There was no statistically significant difference in Part A spending, but a large and statistically significant increase in Part B spending.

Out-of-pocket payment reduced spending largely by suppressing elective care (broadly defined) as opposed to emergency care. In particular:

* Emergency care (ambulance use, emergency room visits, emergency and urgent hospitalizations) appeared unaffected by the presence of secondary insurance.

* Elective admissions, preventive care, minor procedures and endoscopies were strongly affected by secondary insurance coverage, with substantially higher use among those with private secondary insurance.

It is not possible to use observational (non-experimental) data to prove beyond a doubt that a causal relationship exists between secondary insurance and spending. For several reasons, however, this analysis strongly suggests secondary insurance (reduced out-of-pocket costs) genuinely causes higher spending, and is not merely associated with secondary insurance due to some other factors affecting both insurance demand and health care use. The following factors suggest that this is a causal relationship. First, beneficiaries themselves report that out-of-pocket costs are a significant reason for delaying care. Nearly 20 percent of beneficiaries without secondary insurance reporting delaying care due to concerns over cost, versus 5 percent of beneficiaries with private secondary insurance. Thus, survey data provide direct evidence that out-of-pocket cost is a mechanism by which secondary insurance increases demand for care.

Second, there was a clear dose-response relationship between depth of insurance coverage and increased spending. Those with first-dollar or nearly first-dollar coverage had much higher spending than others, regardless of secondary insurance status.

Third, only the depth of coverage mattered, not the type of secondary insurance. When a flag for (nearly) first-dollar coverage was included in the regression, the individual types of secondary insurance were no longer statistically significant determinants of spending. Low out-of-pocket cost was a sufficient explanation for all of the observed increase in demand, regardless of the source of the secondary insurance.

This finding of a universal effect of first-dollar coverage regardless of insurance type weakens any alternative explanation based on the specifics of insurance ownership (described below). Ultimately, it did not matter whether beneficiaries chose to purchase coverage or not, or earned coverage as a retirement benefit or not. The only factor that mattered was whether or not their Part B care was free or nearly free. There are two generic counter-arguments that can be used to explain the results of a regression analysis as something other than a causal relationship. The first is omitted variables bias. This is the possibility that some unobserved factors are strongly correlated with insurance and are strong determinants of spending. This could be some unobserved difference in health status, or merely a systematic difference in beneficiaries taste for or preference for health care use. If such factors exist, then the apparent relationship between insurance and spending shown by the regression is merely proxying for these unobserved factors. The second counter-argument is self-selection, for the types of insurance that are individually purchased. If beneficiaries bought secondary coverage in anticipation of having higher spending, then the causality runs from spending causing insurance coverage, and not the other way around.

Unobserved health status differences cannot plausibly explain these results. Any hypothesized health status differences would have to be highly selective and secretive. They would only affect the need for Part B services but not Part A, only require elective care but not emergency care, and would only affect those who have near-first-dollar coverage and not others. Such factors would also have to be undetectable both by physicians (reporting diagnoses used in risk adjustment) and by beneficiaries (in their own self-reported health and functional status). to be strongly correlated with ownership of secondary insurance. That combination is implausible enough that we can reasonably dismiss it from consideration.

Unobserved differences in taste and preference for health care are impossible to rule out as an alternative explanation of the results. It is possible that, on average, beneficiaries who ended up with nearly-complete secondary coverage, regardless of the source of that coverage, had developed a taste for higher levels of health care use prior to becoming eligible for Medicare. Whereas beneficiaries with the same class of coverage, but paying at least 5 percent of costs, did not. We could think of no obvious mechanism that would generate such a strong correlation across all types of secondary coverage. But tastes and preferences are idiosyncratic and unobservable, so there is no obvious data-driven way either to rule that out or to test it as an alternative.

Self-selection as an alternative hypothesis could only apply to individual purchase insurance, not to employer-sponsored coverage. If self-selection is offered as an alternative explanation, it has to be paired with some alternative explanation of higher costs for those with employer-sponsored coverage. Moreover, any self-selection of insurance based on observable factors – observed health status, income, education, or demographics – should largely be accounted for by the regression analysis. For example, any connection between good health and unwillingness to purchase secondary insurance should be captured by the presence of health status measures in the regression analysis.

Finally, we appeal to Occam’s Razor (a principle that generally recommends selecting the competing hypothesis that makes the fewest new assumptions, when the hypotheses are equal in other respects) to argue that the lack of copayment causes the higher spending by those with secondary insurance. On the one hand, one simple explanation – those who receive nearly free care use much more of it – provides a simple, universal explanation for the higher spending by beneficiaries with all types of private secondary insurance. On the other hand, alternative explanations are a hodgepodge of factors that only apply to some types of insurance (self-selection) and unobservable taste and preference factors that (through some unexplained mechanism) apply only to a subset of persons with secondary insurance (those with near-first-dollar coverage). Clearly, lack of copayment is the simpler explanation of what we have observed.

In summary, the evidence is reasonably clear that secondary insurance raises Medicare costs. After eliminating persons with VA use and adjusting for covariates (health, income, education, demographics), beneficiaries with secondary insurance use much more health care than those who have no secondary insurance. The effect is due solely to those with near-first-dollar coverage (defined here as paying less than 5 percent of Part B costs). Beneficiaries without such coverage, by contrast, appear no different from those with no secondary insurance. The differential impact by service type – more on Part B than Part A, more on elective care than emergency care – also suggests that the out-of-pocket cost causes the lower use of care. When asked, beneficiaries themselves say exactly that – those without secondary insurance are far more likely to report having delayed care due to cost. Taken together, this provides a coherent picture that out-of-pocket costs matter significantly to Medicare beneficiaries, and that eliminating those costs raises health care spending.

This analysis does not address whether the increased spending is desirable or undesirable, or whether reduced spending leads to poorer outcomes. That question — whether the value of additional care exceeds its cost – cannot be answered from the analysis of spending data alone, if it can be answered at all. Instead, this analysis merely shows that beneficiaries in fee-for-service Medicare will tend to use much more health care when each additional service is free (to them) than they would if they had to pay a significant portion of the cost of each additional service.

http://www.medpac.gov/documents/Jun09_SecondaryInsurance_CONTRACTOR_RS_REVISED.pdf

Although this excerpt from the 44 page MedPAC report on secondary insurance for Medicare beneficiaries (Medigap, etc.) is more than most people want to read, it really is important because this report is being used to try to expand policies that would reduce the moral hazard of insurance. The theory is that people use too much health care if it is “for free” (no deductibles, copayments, or coinsurance), and that they would access only the care that they really needed if they had to pay for at least a portion of it. Is this theory valid?

Although many proposals to reduce the government component of Medicare spending would do so by transferring government costs to the beneficiaries, this proposal to require cost sharing in Medigap plans is quite different. Since Medigap plans are privately funded, the reduction in premiums due to increases in cost sharing would accrue to the beneficiaries and not to the government. The reduction in government spending occurs only indirectly by not having to pay the government’s share of that care which was not received because of the patients’ own concerns about out-of-pocket costs.

The authors of the MedPAC report do confirm that individuals without supplementary coverage (without Medigap) use less care and therefore cost less. Policymakers using this report seem to be extrapolating the conclusion that eliminating cost sharing creates an increased demand for care that patients can do without, even though the authors clearly state that “this analysis does not address whether the increased spending is desirable or undesirable.” Nevertheless, the authors do seem to demonstrate some bias as they dismiss alternative explanations.

A few observations are warranted:

* Above all, the greater amount of care obtained by those with first dollar coverage cannot be dismissed as being excessive or wasteful. Although predominantly elective, these included preventive services and services that may reduce symptoms and improve quality of life. Preventive services were used only half as often by those with no supplemental coverage compared to those with additional coverage. A health care system should provide affordable access to more than just emergency services.

* Only about 10 percent of Medicare beneficiaries have no supplemental coverage, and it was this group that used fewer services. The authors seem to dismiss the facts that these individuals may not be culturally attuned to freely using the health care system, and many would self-select to not purchase additional coverage. They may decide that premiums for the plans are not worth the cost, or they may simply not like doctors and want to avoid all of the health care that they can.

* The fact that those receiving supplemental plans from their employers used less care than those purchasing their own Medigap plans suggests that the former group was diluted with individuals who would not have purchased plans had their employers not provided them. Again, this suggests that individuals averse to health care and not wanting to pay for it should not be used as the standard for the proper level of care.

* An observation buried in this report is that mortality was higher in those who had no supplemental coverage. Although the authors were not able to explain precisely why, they did state, “In summary, the importance of this finding comes down to a judgment. On the one hand, the finding of excess mortality is based on a single year’s experience, and is inconsistent with the other measures of population health status. On the other hand, it is not explained by demographic or other factors, and it is not obviously an artifact of the methodology used. Finally, excess mortality would be a reasonable outcome from deficiencies of care, for example, from the lack of preventive care for this population.”

* Whether or not increased utilization by those with supplemental coverage provided a medical benefit, the plans clearly provided financial security for users of health care. How could anyone consider that to not be of benefit?

* This report remains silent on the issue of the profound administrative waste in providing plans that supplement the traditional Medicare program. The savings achieved by rolling the benefits of the supplemental plans into Medicare would likely offset much of the cost of services declined because of perceptions of affordability. Of course, once we fix Medicare, we should provide it to everyone.

Blaming our high health care costs on the moral hazard of having free access to health care at the time of need has got to end. Several nations that spend half of what we do nevertheless provide comprehensive health care services with free access. The real moral hazard is not that people might use more health care that they don’t have to pay for at the time of services, the moral hazard we should be concerned about is that people might not get the care that they should have because of financial barriers to that care.

That turns the moral hazard argument upside down, but that’s where it belongs.

For more on cracks in the foundation of moral hazard, citing the work of John Nyman:

http://www.pnhp.org/news/2007/september/cracks-in-the-moral-hazard-foundation

Once politically taboo, proposals to shift more Medicare costs to elderly are gaining traction

By Noam N. Levey
Los Angeles Times, July 15, 2011

The heated debate over the federal deficit has pumped new life into controversial proposals for requiring Americans on Medicare to pay more for their healthcare, raising the possibility that seniors’ medical bills could jump hundreds, or even thousands of dollars.

“Over the long haul, beneficiaries will have to pay more and taxpayers will have to pay more,” warned Henry Aaron, a longtime healthcare expert at the Brookings Institution. “It’s just too darn expensive.”

That could mean higher co-pays, higher deductibles or higher premiums for many seniors.

Though the elderly are much better off financially than they were when Medicare was enacted, half of seniors subsist on incomes below $22,000 a year.

“What many people may not realize is that the Medicare benefit package is not actually very generous,” said Jonathan Oberlander, a University of North Carolina health policy professor who has written extensively about the program’s history.

On top of standard premiums of more than $141 a month, enrollees must pay a $1,132 deductible for every hospital stay, and hundreds of dollars a day more for long hospital stays.

Medicare beneficiaries are also responsible for 20% of the bills for medical equipment such as wheelchairs and non-hospital procedures, such as kidney dialysis, physical therapy or outpatient surgery.

Medicare also doesn’t cover long-term care in nursing homes. And unlike many private health plans, Medicare doesn’t offer catastrophic protection by capping how much beneficiaries have to pay out of pocket every year.

That can mean substantial healthcare tabs for some seniors.

Medicare households on average spent $4,620 on healthcare in 2009, more than twice what non-Medicare households spent, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation.

“We will do better if people are more involved in making healthcare choices,” said Gail Wilensky, a health economist who oversaw the Medicare program under President George H.W. Bush. “There are few people who are more price sensitive than seniors.”

How much more seniors can afford to pay continues to stoke intense debate, however, especially as Medicare beneficiaries are already projected to spend as much as quarter of their income on healthcare in 2020, up from around a sixth now.

“Some have the impression that seniors are quite wealthy and could afford more premiums,” said Tricia Neuman, director of the Medicare Policy Project at the Kaiser Family Foundation. “The numbers tell a different story.”

A recent Kaiser analysis showed that half of all Medicare beneficiaries have less than $33,100 in retirements account and other savings.

Neuman and others also warn that increasing co-pays and deductibles may discourage seniors from seeking medical care they need.

Brown University researchers, for example, found that seniors went to the doctor less frequently after their Medicare managed care plans raised co-pays for outpatient visits. At the same time, they ended up spending more time in the hospital.

Because hospital care is so much more expensive, that probably ended up costing Medicare more than the program saved by paying for fewer doctor visits, while also leaving seniors sicker, said Dr. Amal Trivedi, the lead author of the study.

“Policymakers should be very sensitive to adverse and unexpected consequence of increased cost-sharing,” Trivedi warned. “It can be a lose-lose proposition.”

http://www.latimes.com/health/sc-dc-0715-medicare-costs-20110715,0,2124812,full.story

And…

Press Conference by the President

The White House
July 15, 2011

President Barack Obama:  So with that, let me see who’s on the list. We’re going to start with Jake Tapper.

Q: Thank you, Mr. President. You’ve said that reducing the deficit will require shared sacrifice. We know — we have an idea of the taxes that you would like to see raised on corporations and on Americans in the top two tax brackets, but we don’t yet know what you specifically are willing to do when it comes to entitlement spending. In the interest of transparency, leadership, and also showing the American people that you have been negotiating in good faith, can you tell us one structural reform that you are willing to make to one of these entitlement programs that would have a major impact on the deficit? Would you be willing to raise the retirement age? Would you be willing to means test Social Security or Medicare?

THE PRESIDENT: We’ve said that we are willing to look at all those approaches. I’ve laid out some criteria in terms of what would be acceptable. So, for example, I’ve said very clearly that we should make sure that current beneficiaries as much as possible are not affected. But we should look at what can we do in the out-years, so that over time some of these programs are more sustainable.

I’ve said that means testing on Medicare, meaning people like myself, if — I’m going to be turning 50 in a week. So I’m starting to think a little bit more about Medicare eligibility. (Laughter.) Yes, I’m going to get my AARP card soon — and the discounts.

But you can envision a situation where for somebody in my position, me having to pay a little bit more on premiums or co-pays or things like that would be appropriate. And, again, that could make a difference.  So we’ve been very clear about where we’re willing to go.

What we’re not willing to do is to restructure the program in the ways that we’ve seen coming out of the House over the last several months where we would voucherize the program and you potentially have senior citizens paying $6,000 more. I view Social Security and Medicare as the most important social safety nets that we have. I think it is important for them to remain as social insurance programs that give people some certainty and reliability in their golden years.

But it turns out that making some modest modifications in those entitlements can save you trillions of dollars. And it’s not necessary to completely revamp the program. What is necessary is to say how do we make some modifications, including, by the way, on the providers’ side. I think that it’s important for us to keep in mind that drug companies, for example, are still doing very well through the Medicare program. And although we have made drugs more available at a cheaper price to seniors who are in Medicare through the Affordable Care Act, there’s more work to potentially be done there.

So if you look at a balanced package even within the entitlement programs, it turns out that you can save trillions of dollars while maintaining the core integrity of the program.

Q: And the retirement age?

THE PRESIDENT:  I’m not going to get into specifics. As I said, Jake, everything that you mentioned are things that we have discussed. But what I’m not going to do is to ask for even — well, let me put it this way: If you’re a senior citizen, and a modification potentially costs you a hundred or two hundred bucks a year more, or even if it’s not affecting current beneficiaries, somebody who’s 40 today 20 years from now is going to end up having to pay a little bit more.

The least I can do is to say that people who are making a million dollars or more have to do something as well. And that’s the kind of tradeoff, that’s the kind of balanced approach and shared sacrifice that I think most Americans agree needs to happen.

Q: Thank you.

http://www.whitehouse.gov/the-press-office/2011/07/15/press-conference-president

The facts are clear. Medicare is an inadequate program, driving most beneficiaries to purchase supplemental coverage, or to rely on supplemental retirement benefits provided by their prior employment, or to switch to Medicare Advantage plans. Also, instead of advocating for patching the deficiencies in Medicare, our Washington politicians are supporting policies that would move more of the costs to Medicare beneficiaries themselves. With median incomes of only $22,000 and median savings and retirement accounts of only $33,100, the average Medicare population would be further burdened financially.

Let’s look at two of the policies that President Obama supported in his press conference today: 1) “we should make sure that current beneficiaries as much as possible are not affected, but we should look at what can we do in the out-years, so that over time some of these programs are more sustainable,” and 2) we should require higher income Medicare beneficiaries to pay “more on premiums or co-pays or things like that.”

Making Medicare “more sustainable” for future beneficiaries means reducing government spending on this already inadequate program. That reduction comes at the cost of forcing increased spending by the beneficiaries. We should be going in the opposite direction. We should be rolling the benefits of the supplemental plans into the traditional Medicare program. Since that would eliminate the administrative waste of these programs, it would actually reduce total spending on health care, even if more of the costs are shifted to the government program. The decrease in out-of-pocket costs would be greater than the increase in government spending.

Since health care costs are now so high, it is very reasonable to expect higher income individuals to pay more for Medicare, but how should we do that? If we start means-testing the deductibles and coinsurance, we create an administratively complex system that would test the fortitude of patients, providers, and the IRS. Instead, we should be eliminating deductibles and coinsurance. Other nations have demonstrated that reducing “moral hazard” through cost sharing is unnecessary since their costs are much lower than ours even though they have first dollar coverage.

Should premiums be means tested? Requiring wealthier individuals to pay significantly higher premiums would motivate them to look for other private options for health care. Without the political support of the wealthy, Medicare would become another underfunded welfare program. It would be like Medicaid except with skimpier benefits, greater out-of-pocket costs, and a greater lack of willing providers.

Instead of means tested Medicare premiums, we should totally eliminate the premiums and fully fund Medicare through progressive taxes. Separating the financing totally from the payment system allows us to “means test” the contribution to the program without having any negative impact on access for anyone, regardless of personal financial resources.

What is sad is that this diversion into defending Medicare as it is, with all of its deficiencies, has kept the national dialogue from moving into the conversation that we need to have – fixing Medicare and providing it for all of us. In the meantime, Washington burnishes its reputation of being the nation’s prime source of bad ideas, and we live with the consequences.

Employers Lobby to Weaken Insurance Mandate

By Janet Adamy
The Wall Street Journal, July 13, 2011

It is three years before most of the new health-care law kicks in, but already some of America’s largest employers are peppering the Internal Revenue Service with concerns that making the changes will be far more complex than they anticipated.

At issue is one of the law’s central requirements: employers with 50 or more full-time workers must offer affordable insurance or pay a penalty. It sounds simple enough. But in crafting the rules, the IRS and two other federal agencies are now tackling basic yet messy questions, such as who counts as a full-time worker and how do companies measure whether insurance is “affordable.”

Retailers, restaurants and other companies that rely on seasonal, temporary and other workers with flexible schedules, say it’s hard to figure out who is a full-time worker. That could cause the employer to enroll and drop them from coverage, potentially churning them through new state-run insurance exchanges or the Medicaid federal-state program for the poor, as their hours fluctuated.

Census Bureau data shows that six million, or 5.6% of private-sector employees, work variable hours.

The debate centers on how federal agencies define a full-time worker. The law itself, signed by President Barack Obama in March 2010, defines a full-time employee as one who works at least 30 hours per week on average in a given month.

Once classified as a full-time worker, the employer is obligated to provide affordable health care or pay a penalty of $2,000 per worker, excluding the first 30 workers.

In response, the IRS in May floated the idea of giving employers a “look-back” period of between three and 12 months to determine whether certain workers met the full-time definition. Only then, if the employee hit the target, would the employer have to start providing insurance or pay the penalty.

Meanwhile, employers cheered the idea and are pressing the IRS to go further. An umbrella group called Employers for Flexibility in Health Care, which represents at least four dozen big employers and trade groups, last month asked the IRS to ensure that all part-time, temporary and seasonal hires wait up to 12 months, plus an additional 90-day waiting period, before they qualify for insurance.

In one of more than 200 submissions made recently to the IRS, Wal-Mart Stores Inc., Gap Inc., United Parcel Service Inc., Hilton Worldwide Inc. and others have pushed for a lengthy grace period that could stave off penalties for a year or more after certain workers are hired. The result could undermine some of the law’s intent to insure those who can’t afford coverage.

http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304584404576440093426726656.html

And…

Letter

June 17, 2011
From: Employers for Flexibility in Health Care
To: Internal Revenue Service

RE: Request for Comments on Shared Responsibility for Employers Regarding Health Coverage (IRC §4980H, as created by PPACA §1513)

(excerpt)

A. Definition of Full-time Employee Under the “Look-back” Methodology

1. Employers should be granted flexibility to utilize the look­back period for new part­time, temporary, and seasonal hires. Of primary importance to employers with variable workforces is the treatment of new and newly eligible employees, as our workforce fluctuates on an ongoing basis throughout a given year with new employees entering our systems sometimes on a daily basis. Notice 2011-36 indicates that the Department is considering applying the proposed safe harbor “only in a limited form” for such employees. A limited application for newly hired employees would be extremely problematic for employers with variable workforces. Employers with variable workforces must be able to utilize the look-back period primarily in the first year of an employee’s service to determine whether the employee has worked sufficient hours to reach full-time status and become eligible for the employer’s health plan. In many cases in our industries, employees may choose to leave before completing one year of service. In addition, under the individual mandate in 2014, these employees may be receiving coverage through other sources (e.g., Exchange, Medicaid, dependent or parent coverage). Because these employees may be in the middle of a plan year for other coverage and do not want to lose their annual benefits (i.e., restart their annual deductible or out of pocket maximum), they may choose to retain that coverage rather than enroll in the employer plan in the first year of service.

Employers should have the flexibility to choose the length of the look-back period ranging from 3 to 12 months depending on the nature of their business and their workforce.

For employers offering health plans, the 90-day wait period would begin once an employee’s eligibility for the employer plan is established.

Utilizing this form of a look­back not only allows for a longer measuring period, but also a longer stability period to reduce churn between employer and Exchange coverage. Not applying the look-back period to new part­time, temporary and seasonal employees would be a strong deterrent to employers’ giving employees the opportunity to work more than 30 hours per week on average and employing seasonal workers beyond 90 days.

C. Maintaining the Employment Connection During the Stability Period

The Notice states that if an employee is determined to be full time during the look­back period, then the employee would be treated as a full-time employee during a subsequent stability period, regardless of the number of the employee’s hours of service during the stability period, so long as he or she “remained an employee.”

The Coalition recommends that employees maintain a connection with an employer and meet a minimum work threshold during the stability period. This is particularly important for employers with large numbers of part­time, temporary, or seasonal workers whose hours and patterns of work fluctuate considerably.

D. Penalties

1) Penalties should not apply during any look­back or wait periods.

2) Seasonal employees should not be included in the total number of full­time employee for purposes of calculating employer tax liability.

For full 10 page letter, including signers, click on this link:

http://www.restaurant.org/pdfs/advocacy/20110617_EFHC-Re_Notice2011-36-FINAL.pdf

When supposedly the intent of the health reform legislation was to try to provide health insurance for everyone (well, not quite), it is particularly disconcerting to see large employers such as Walmart, Gap, United Parcel Service, Hilton, and even health insurer Aetna propose rules that would relieve them of the requirement to cover as many as half or even more of their employees. But these employers do have a point. Is it reasonable for them to provide health benefits for a highly unstable workforce that works seasonally, part time, or temporarily, especially when that turnover creates instability and fragmentation in the employees’ health care coverage?

Although Walmart has been a favorite whipping boy for the health justice community, should Walmart alone really bear that much of the blame? As long as we have a system that is dependent on a patchwork of private health plans, public programs, and no programs at all, no matter how much Walmart tries, their employees cannot possibly be assured of having stable, comprehensive coverage throughout their pre-Medicare years.

We should dismiss Walmart (and all other employers) as the keeper of health insurance (while encouraging them to apply the savings toward living wages). But to do that, we need to end our fragmentation of coverage and care by establishing a single, comprehensive health program that will include everyone – from birth, throughout life – through an improved Medicare for all.

I mean… look back over a year of employment? … and then start another three month waiting period before eligibility is established? … and then find that this “associate” is no longer employed? (Check… more bucks for the Walton family.) Come on!

Administrative Compensation for Medical Injuries: Lessons from Three Foreign Systems

By Michelle M. Mello, Allen Kachalia, and David M. Studdert
The Commonwealth Fund, July 2011

Medical malpractice reform is a perennial issue for state legislatures and, more recently, for the U.S. Congress. The American medical liability system is widely acknowledged to perform poorly in several important respects. Few patients with injuries due to negligence file claims, in part because of the difficulty of obtaining attorney representation and the arduousness of the litigation process. Many meritorious cases do not result in compensation to the patient, while many non-meritorious cases do lead to settlements or jury awards. The amounts awarded are highly variable across similar injuries, inadequate in some cases and excessive in others. The highly adversarial litigation process destroys physician–patient relationships and involves considerable emotional strain for both plaintiffs and defendants. Fear of litigation chills open discussion about medical errors, resulting in missed opportunities for learning and patient safety improvement, and leads physicians to order extra tests, referrals, and other services primarily for the purpose of reducing their liability exposure. Such defensive medicine, together with the high cost of malpractice insurance premiums that increases providers’ overhead costs and the prices they charge, contributes to the upward growth of health care expenditures.

Abstract:

The United States requires patients injured by medical negligence to seek compensation through lawsuits, an approach that has drawbacks related to fairness, cost, and impact on medical care. Several countries, including New Zealand, Sweden, and Denmark, have replaced litigation with administrative compensation systems for patients who experience an avoidable medical injury. Sometimes called “no-fault” systems, such schemes enable patients to file claims for compensation without using an attorney. A governmental or private adjudicating organization uses neutral medical experts to evaluate claims of injury and does not require patients to prove that health care providers were negligent in order to receive compensation. Information from claims is used to analyze opportunities for patient safety improvement. The systems have successfully limited liability costs while improving injured patients’ access to compensation. American policymakers may find many of the elements of these countries’ systems to be transferable to demonstration projects in the U.S.

http://www.commonwealthfund.org/~/media/Files/Publications/Issue%20Brief/2011/Jul/1517_Mello_admin_compensation_med_injuries.pdf

Our medical liability system is very expensive, highly inefficient, extremely adversarial thereby inflicting much emotional pain on all involved, and leaves most individuals with medical injury uncompensated. It is a very lousy system. This report describes far better systems in three other nations, providing very valuable lessons for the United States.

There are two important stumbling blocks if we were to decide to adopt a more rational liability system based on these models. First, these nations demonstrate greater social solidarity than the United States, such as having other social insurance programs (health care, disability, unemployment) obviating the need for for filing as many medical injury claims.

Second, just as we seem to be incapable of displacing our wasteful, inefficient, highly expensive private insurance industry, we would likely find similar resistance in displacing our wasteful, inefficient, highly expensive legal system. Health insurers and tort attorneys have the ear of Congress.

What can we do? Citizen activism. It’s empowering.