Private Medicare Advantage (MA) insurers have long received overpayments from Medicare due to their “upcoding,” which makes MA enrollees appear less healthy than they are — and a recent court decision could worsen the problem. As policymakers look to strengthen Medicare, eliminating upcoding should be high on their...
off the charts
POLICY INSIGHT
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
BEYOND THE NUMBERS
Expanding Medicare Eligibility Entails Many Design Issues
October 4, 2018
Proposals to expand Medicare have moved to the forefront of debate, with several expansion plans advanced in policy journals or introduced in Congress. Although they vary in scope, all raise numerous technical and program design issues. In a new issue brief for the National Academy of...
Fixing Medicare Benefit Cliff Shouldn’t Give Cover for Drug Company Giveaway
September 24, 2018
Beneficiaries in Medicare’s prescription drug program (Medicare Part D) with high drug spending will have to pay much more out of pocket starting in 2020 under a scheduled sharp increase in the spending threshold at which catastrophic coverage kicks in. Policymakers may soon eliminate that looming benefit “cliff.” But they shouldn’t also reduce the discount that drug companies must pay when...
House Shouldn’t Repeal or Further Delay “Cadillac Tax”
July 11, 2018
The House Ways and Means Committee will mark up a bill today to delay the excise tax on high-cost health plans (the so-called “Cadillac tax”) by another year, to 2023. That would be unwise for two reasons: it would lose needed revenue, and it would set back efforts to slow the growth of health care costs.
The...
Previewing the 2018 Social Security and Medicare Trustees’ Reports
June 4, 2018
The Social Security and Medicare trustees will release their annual reports on the programs’ finances tomorrow and, though we don’t know how the projections may change from last year’s, we expect them to tell a similar story: ...
New CBO Budget Projections Are Cause for Concern — Not Alarm
April 9, 2018
New Congressional Budget Office (CBO) projections show that the budget outlook has deteriorated significantly, but that doesn’t justify unwise spending cuts or an economically damaging balanced budget amendment to the U.S. Constitution.
CBO now projects that the deficit will top $1 trillion...
Why a Balanced Budget Amendment Would Harm Social Security and Federal Deposit Insurance
April 9, 2018
The problems with a constitutional balanced budget amendment, which the House will vote on this week, go far beyond the significant economic harm it could cause. For instance, its requirement that policymakers offset federal spending in any year with revenues collected in...
Rescissions Would Renege on Budget Deal
April 4, 2018
Some congressional Republicans want to force votes to cut (or “rescind”) billions of dollars in non-defense spending from the 2018 government funding bill Congress passed on a bipartisan basis last month, according to press reports. Doing so would renege on the recent bipartisan budget...
Building a Better Budget Process
February 26, 2018
Congress’ continued failure to meet budget deadlines has prompted widespread calls to improve the budget process, and the recent Bipartisan Budget Act established a joint select committee to examine the budget and appropriations process and recommend reforms. Meanwhile, under the auspices of the...
Congress Shouldn’t Suspend Health-Related Taxes
January 17, 2018
The four-week federal funding bill that the House will consider tomorrow would temporarily suspend or delay three health-related taxes: the 2.3 percent excise tax on medical devices, the fee on health insurance providers (also known as the health insurance tax), and the excise tax on high-cost health...
