Elaine Fronhofer: Medicare Advantage policies put profits over people’s care

Al Norman’s Jan. 2 guest column “Medicare Advantage, and disadvantages” focused on an issue that other local activists, including Valley Action and allied Indivisible groups in New York, have been hard at work on for nearly a year. Thanks to his observations, readers got an excellent overview of some of the problems with the program that we refer to as Medicare DisAdvantage.

We activists seek to educate the public about several of those “disadvantages” including how current rules allow private insurance companies selling Medicare Advantage policies to put profits over people’s care, the rampant fraud these companies are committing by their creative billing (independent estimates of their theft of your tax dollars range from tens of billions to over $100 billion per year), and their deceptive marketing.

The companies that sell the lion’s share of these policies are some of the wealthiest in the nation with a hefty lobbying budget (last year, when Biden said he wanted to rein in some of their abuses they took out Super Bowl ads suggesting he was driving up the cost of Medicare for seniors). Yes, we citizens face an uphill battle against “Big Health” controlling and destroying the Medicare system. But there is a way to make a real difference, right now.

At this time each year the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) issues new rules. CMS’s current proposed rules do not go nearly far enough to correct the problems with the current system. The good news is that more and more individuals and activist groups are beginning to understand the magnitude of the harm. We are beginning to use our collective voices to pressure elected officials and their appointees. Our goal is to end the current abuses in the Medicare Advantage program and use the billions of dollars saved to improve traditional Medicare, such as by including dental, vision, and hearing coverage and lowering premiums for all Americans. I urge you to join the effort of groups like Valley Action (www.ValleyAction.net) working on the issue. Together we can both save Medicare from corporate fraud and make it better than ever.

Elaine Fronhofer, co-founder of Valley Action

Amherst