Connecticut: United Healthcare drops 2,250 physicians from its Medicaid Advantage program.
All as expected and predicted: ObamaKare was specifically designed to slash Medicaid Advantage payments and the insurance companies are cutting their services as the result.
Here’s how Obama’s designed this:
Under Medicare Advantage, beneficiaries are allowed to shop around between given providers in their area. Unique to Medicare Advantage, providers receive a rebate from the federal government if they offer coverage at a price below the government benchmark
– or the price the government would be willing to pay in the given area for patients enrolled. Providers were able to use this rebate to lower prices further and expand coverage for their enrollees. As a result, Medicare Advantage enrollees often enjoy additional health, wellness and non-essential coverage well beyond that of traditional Medicare enrollees.
This may sound familiar. It’s healthcare coverage based on choice and the marketplace, which Democrats claim define Obamacare. There is just one problem: Obamacare completely guts Medicare Advantage.
Provisions of the law are almost explicitly structured to drive the government’s premier choice-based healthcare program into oblivion. First, Obamacare lowers Medicare Advantage benchmarks across the board. The law lowers the benchmarks so much that many Advantage enrollees will only qualify for a reimbursement to their providers worth 95 percent of what the government would cover under traditional fee-for-service Medicare.
Adding insult to injury, Obamacare also slashes the available rebates that are used to lower costs and provide additional benefits to Medicare Advantage patients. Previously, companies that provided care efficiently were eligible to receive 75 percent of the difference between their costs and the government benchmark. Obamacare, in addition to the lower benchmarks, slashes these rebates. Most companies will now only be eligible for 50 percent rebates, raising the cost and lowering available benefits for Advantage enrollees.