It must be driving these Havard professors nutty every time they prove that the Part-C-Medicare-Advantage-like RyanCare approach to simplifying the Medicare mess is the way to go. That's just not what such lefties from Harvard are supposed to say.
The Democratic party line is that Part C Medicare Advantage is a program in which the Republican-created Medicare Part C program lets blood-sucking greedy insurance companies dupe stupid senior citizens into accepting inferior health care while robbing taxpayers blind. But apparently the data indicates somethign different. According to Healthcare Finance on December 4th according to December's Health Affairs (in a gated article),
"... researchers, led by Harvard Medical School professor Bruce Landon, used effectiveness and utilization data submitted to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) by Part C Medicare Advantage health plans, as well as CMS’ consumer satisfaction surveys. The sample sizes grew from 3.1 million Part C Medicare Advantage HMO enrollees in 2003 to 5.7 million in 2009 and included data from 280 health plans by 2009. The authors studied rates of medical and surgical hospitalizations, outpatient visits, ambulatory procedures, emergency department visits and twelve specific surgical procedures, and compared Part C Medicare Advantage HMO plans to CMS enrollment and claims data from a random sample of traditional Medicare beneficiaries, adjusted for demographic factors. They found Part C Medicare Advantage HMO enrollees had 25 to 35 percent fewer emergency department visits, compared to traditional Medicare enrollees, and had 20 to 25 percent fewer inpatient medical days. Part C Medicare Advantage HMO plans also had fewer ambulatory surgeries and procedures than in traditional Medicare, with ambulatory utilization 25 percent lower in 2003, before narrowing to 7 percent by 2008. "
Back in August 2012, a bunch of left-wing Harvard guys -- including one of the many self-proclaimed architects of Obamacare -- used 2009 Part C Medicare Advantage data to prove that under the competitive bidding system proposed for RyanCare private insurance companies could deliver the same benefits as Original Medicare at up to 15% less cost to both seniors and the government than the insurance companies that administer Original Medicare. They are are often the same insurance companies of course so it is the rules of Orignal Parts A and B Medicare versus the rules of Part C Medicare Advantage and proposed for RyanCare that must be causing this result.
As part of the August 2012 Harvard research paper, the self-proclaimed Obamacare architect -- David Cutler -- mustering all the intellectual rigor you expect from Harvard stated he was sure the Part C Medicare Advantage insurers were gaming the system somehow to cause those results but he couldn't figure out how they were doing it. Well, bad news, professor. Some other Harvard professors just proved that that is not the case. (Somehow this third group of Harvard professors turned that finding into good news for Obamacare! But that's beside the point.)
Meanwhile, seniors, sorry but you're screwed. Isn't interesting that most of the information about how the Republican's RyanCare proposal would work better than the Democratic Party's Original Medicare seems to be coming out after the election? And Medicare Part C Medicare Advantage is still going the way of the Princess phone thanks to Obamacare.
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