Last week, I got a letter from the Medicare administration folks and you can see part of it above. I’m a huge Medicare supporter and I feel like it saved my life. When I was diagnosed with a rare former of cancer— mantle cell lymphoma— treatment was well over a million dollars. Who can afford that! Medicare paid everything without any of the tricks private insurance companies use to not pay.
On Friday, I was very happy to see a new bill by Ro Khanna and Mark Pocan, the Save Medicare Act, meant to prevent for-profit (and nothing else) insurance companies from tricking people into thinking they are part of Medicare. Khanna, explaining the bill to his constituents, wrote that ahead of Medicare's Open Enrollment period, he and Pocan are seeking to “prohibit private insurers from using ‘Medicare’ in plan titles or advertisements, and impose significant fines for any insurer that engages in this deceptive practice.”
He explained that “‘Medicare Advantage’ is just private insurance that profits by denying coverage and the name is being used to trick seniors into enrolling. That’s not right. This bill will prevent these private insurers from labeling themselves as ‘Medicare’ and allow us to focus on strengthening and expanding real Medicare instead.”
