Senate Republicans examining health reform's effect on Medicare advantage

The Hill: "A quartet of Senate Republicans is calling on Medicare's top accountant to release the numbers behind his analysis of health reform's impact on the Medicare Advantage (MA) program. The lawmakers ... say the steep cuts to MA under the new reform law will cause many plans to fold, while many others will be forced to drop benefits to remain profitable. In April, Richard Foster, chief actuary at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), issued a report that largely supported those claims.  … The letter [to Foster] arrived just a few days after the Obama administration announced that enrollment in MA plans is projected to jump 5 percent next year, while average premiums will fall by 1 percent. Those figures, CMS officials said, belie the charges that the new law will cut benefits and hike costs" (Lillis, 9/27).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.