John Oliver Takes on Medicare Advantage
Oliver shows that Medicare Advantage’s toll on seniors and taxpayers is not so funny.
Last night’s episode of Last Week Tonight with John Oliver turned its spotlight on the troubling world of Medicare Advantage — the privately-run alternative to traditional Medicare that HEALTH CARE un-covered and others have long questioned in terms of cost, fairness and value.
Most folks don’t even know what Medicare Advantage is, let alone how deeply flawed the program has become and how much it drains the Medicare Trust Fund. But most people have seen the ads on TV – which Oliver suggests shouldn’t even be allowed to have the word “Medicare” included because that in itself is deceptive (and several lawmakers agree with him).
Oliver laid it out like this:
“While these plans can be great for companies’ bottom lines, they can be woefully insufficient for those who signed up for them and the providers who have to deal with them. Medicare Advantage basically has all the problems of private insurance, but applied to a more vulnerable population.”
While MA was pitched as a private alternative that would be run better, smarter and more efficiently than traditional Medicare — that has proven to be a fantasy. Independent analyses show exactly the opposite: Medicare Advantage costs taxpayers billions of dollars more each year than original Medicare.
And the harms are not just academic:
Seniors in Medicare Advantage plans face narrower provider networks, often not having access to doctors who participate in traditional Medicare.
Prior-authorization hurdles abound — and those hurdles can mean deadly delays or outright denials of needed care.
Unlike traditional Medicare (which allows almost all physicians to participate and rarely imposes prior-authorization limits), Medicare Advantage plans mimic the worst features of private insurance — but target our most vulnerable: older Americans, most of whom are on fixed incomes, and people with disabilities.
Oliver took a lot of time to zero in on MA’s now cliche ads with celebrity spokes-faces like JJ Walker, Kelsey Grammar, William Shatner and Meredith Vieira — and even produced a parody ad starring Megan Mullally (Will & Grace, The Righteous Gemstones) and Nick Offerman (Parks and Recreation, Fargo).
Oliver’s piece deserves credit for bringing the issue to a very broad audience, but many seniors sadly won’t see the segment and will fall into the Medicare Advantage trap. Thousands of seniors fall into that trap every second of every day because insurers can get away with their deceptive advertising (more than half of all Medicare-eligible seniors are now in an MA plan). And insurers are making massive profits as a result of their deceptive advertising and business practices that are so burdensome and costly to both health care providers and their patients. Fortunately, as we have reported, there is growing bipartisan interest in meaningful reform to the Medicare Advantage program, but know that Big Insurance will spend enormous sums of our money on lobbying to protect their cash cow.
There were a lot of sources used in Oliver’s MA segment – from Bloomberg, More Perfect Union, Wall Street Journal and others. See below for a list of the sources cited in the segment:
The Medicare Advantage program: Status report
MedPacThe $140 Billion A Year of Waste That DOGE Won’t Touch
More Perfect UnionHow Health Insurers and Brokers Are Marketing Medicare
Kaiser Family FoundationMajor Insurers Are Scamming Billions from Medicare, Whistle-Blowers Say
BloombergInsurers Pocketed $50 Billion From Medicare for Diseases No Doctor Treated
Wall Street JournalPlaying by the Rules: Ethics at Work – Taking Advantage
PBS NewsHow Insurers Exploited Medicare Advantage for Billions
New York TimesThe One-Hour Nurse Visits That Let Insurers Collect $15 Billion From Medicare
Wall Street JournalMedicare Advantage Provider Independent Health to Pay Up To $98M to Settle False Claims Act Suit
U.S. Department of Health and Human ServicesOnline Provider Directory Review Report
CMSHow Corporations Raided Medicare
More Perfect UnionMedicare Advantage routinely denies reimbursements for necessary care, hospital execs say
NBC NewsCare Denied: The Dirty Secret Behind Medicare Advantage
The LeverInside the research machine that helps UnitedHealth protect its Medicare profits
STATOz Again Urges MA Industry To Self‑Correct Prior Auth, Upcoding Concerns
Inside Health Policy
Medicare Disadvantage plans
I’m looking forward to listening to John Oliver‘s take.
Always remember we spend twice as much on healthcare as every other advanced nation.
Free us from corporate welfare given to for-profit private health insurance industry, from research hospitals hoarding billions, from employers/retirement systems/unions that use our healthcare as bargaining chips.
Kindly PASS the Medicare for All Acts