Cuts to Medicare Advantage plans are White House gamble, ‘kneecaps seniors’

(The Center Square) – The "day of reckoning" a North Carolina congressman spoke of may impact two groups, rooted in one cause, and occurring at different times.

Medicare Advantage base payments will be cut 0.16% in 2025. The Biden administration, says U.S. Rep. Virginia Foxx, R-N.C., "just kneecapped 33 million seniors," a group at least one analyst says may not realize it until after already casting a vote on whether President Joe Biden stays in the White House.

In a published report, Chris Meekins of Raymond James calls that an election year gamble.

U.S. Rep. Dr. Greg Murphy, R-N.C., two weeks ago forecasted "a day of reckoning" for Medicare Advantage plans. He wrote on social media they have been a good idea but since have "become a plan for denial of patient care, lack of payment to those who deliver the care and billions" in money for insurance companies.

Seniors account for 51% of the Medicare Advantage enrollment, a large portion of which are expected to lose $30 to $50 a month in value of their supplemental benefits. The Centers of Medicare & Medicaid Services on Monday made the cut official, and that despite a letter from Foxx and 44 other Republican members of the U.S. House of Representatives urging otherwise.

Cuts were 1.12% in 2024. The members of Congress, in their letter, said "insurers offering MA plans are already signaling that plan benefits may be cut which will undermine the program and hurt seniors."

The Government Accountability Office has reported Medicare issuing $47 billion in improper payments. A March 12 letter to Gene Dodaro, comptroller for the GAO, from Sens. Rick Scott R-Fla., Mike Braun, R-Ind., and J.D. Vance, R-Ohio, said other groups estimate Medicare fraud at about $60 billion annually.