Privatized Medicare Rips Off Taxpayers and Denies Care to Seniors

Today, the Biden administration proposed new rules covering privatized Medicare (“Medicare Advantage”) plans, designed to address unjust denials of care, promote competition, crack down on misleading marketing and expand transparency and consumer protection standards.

In response, Public Citizen co-president Robert Weissman issued the following statement:

“Privatized Medicare (known as “Medicare Advantage”) is ripping off the American public to the tune of $82 billion a year and growing – all while denying care to seniors who need it.

“The modest and common-sense measures rules proposed by the Biden administration would limit some of this damage, with a major focus on how privatized Medicare plans are unjustly refusing treatment for sick patients.

“The Department of Health and Human Services notes that privatized Medicare plans overturn 80 percent of their denial of care decisions on appeal. But relatively few appeals are filed. So the privatized Medicare plans can aggressively and mechanically deny requests for prior authorization, knowing they can get away with it. The rules proposed today aim to stem these abuses, among others.

“The big question, of course, is what will the Trump administration do with these rules? Will they side with patients needing treatment or care-denying big insurers?

“Unfortunately, despite its populist pretensions, there’s every reason to expect the Trump administration to block these proposed rules from moving forward. Dr. Mehmet Oz, Trump’s nominee to run the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is a major proponent of expanding privatized Medicare, with nary a worry about privatized Medicare’s rampant abuses and rip-offs of taxpayers.”