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From Politics To Policy: A New Payment Approach In Medicare Advantage
1 Bob Berenson is a senior fellow at the Urban Institute in Washington, D.C., and was the head of health plan contracting at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services from 1998 to 2000.
*Corresponding author.
While the Medicare Advantage program's future remains contentious politically, the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission's (MedPAC's) recommended policy of financial neutrality at the local level between private plans and traditional Medicare ignores local market dynamics in important ways. An analysis correlating plan bids against traditional Medicare's local spending levels likely would provide an alternative method of setting benchmarks, by producing a blend of local and national rates. A result would be that the rural and lower-cost urban "floor counties" would have benchmarks below currently inflated levels but above what financial neutrality at the local level--MedPAC's approach--would produce. [Health Affairs 27, no. 2 (2008): w156-w164 (published online 4 March 2008; 10.1377/hlthaff.27.2.w156)] Key Words: Health Reform, Managed Care - Consumers, Managed Care - Medicare, Medicare, Physicians, Variations
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