PPACA change to Medicare Advantage

[MichaelB]

Looks like Medicare Advantage plans will not lose premium support as planned next 1/2014. CMS softens Medicare Advantage funding changes

Medicare Advantage customers may not see the drastic benefit cuts or premium hikes next year that insurers have been warning about after all.
Health insurers had predicted big, painful changes for many of their Medicare

Advantage customers after the federal government said in February that the amount it pays per person for the popular coverage could fall more than 2 percent in 2014.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services then changed course on Monday and said it now expects that the cost per person to climb more than 3 percent.

 

[samclem]

Looks like Medicare Advantage plans will not lose premium support as planned next 1/2014. CMS softens Medicare Advantage funding changes

This will make many people happy.
The trend in "changes" to ACA seems to be in the direction of:
1) Delaying or eliminating the things that were supposed to bring in tax revenue to pay for the new things offered by the program. (e.g. current legislative action to eliminate the planned tax on medical devices)
2) Delaying implementation of promised cuts (this change falls into that category)
3) Eliminating planned benefits (e.g. the CLASS long-term care program) or delaying them (the availabilty of choices under the SHOP [Small Business Health Options Program] insurance program for small businesses now being delayed until 2015. I'm trying to find an impartial explanation on why this very important program has slipped).

The above observation is not about good or bad, desirable or undesirable. The observation is about continuing changes to the law's implementation. I can't help but think the reports of continuing changes/cancellations will make planning even more difficult for those trying to deal with this law.

 

[bUU]

delaying them (the availabilty of choices under the SHOP [Small Business Health Options Program] insurance program for small businesses now being delayed until 2015. I'm trying to find an impartial explanation on why this very important program has slipped).

Many portions of the implementation of ACA were funded thinly, to keep costs down. When you try to develop and deploy a service with no flexibility in the plan (because flexibility you end up not needing looks like wasting taxpayer money), any need for flexibility causes delay, because there isn't redundancy in the funding to afford robustness.

This is standard everyday stuff in today's new, generally penny-wise/pound-foolish American government . Figuratively speaking, we plan on the painters to show up on Thursday and Friday (because it would cost more to have more painters come in to get the whole job done on Thursday, so we have some flexibility in the plan) so we can open on Saturday, but the painters are a day late, so we cannot open on Saturday, because either the painters are there or the place is only half-painted.

All indications are that what happened with SHOP is this very thing. It wasn't a reflection of any legislative action - just a matter of what happens when you try to do three years' work in two. It is not the only facet of ACA implementation that is currently facing the prospect of missing deadlines due to budgeting on the razor's edge.

 

[gerrym51]

Looks like Medicare Advantage plans will not lose premium support as planned next 1/2014. CMS softens Medicare Advantage funding changes

since my wife has a medicare advantage plan and i intend to enroll in the same medicare advantage plan when i'm eligible-i'm happy