THIS MAILING BROUGHT TO YOU FOR FREE BY THE BUSH RE-ELECTION CAMPAIGN (via mc):

Health Plans Boost Benefits for Seniors: Private Alternatives to Medicare Will Get Added Government Funding (SARAH LUECK, 2/24/04, THE WALL STREET JOURNAL)

Private health plans are gearing up to sweeten coverage for senior citizens -- part of an aggressive effort to lure them away from the government-run Medicare program.

Starting next month, many private plans will begin using direct mail, advertising and informational meetings to entice seniors to sign up. The main selling point is better benefits.

Currently, more than 10% of the nation's 41 million Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in such programs. The Bush administration wants to boost that number. As a result, the recent overhaul of Medicare showers $1.3 billion over the next two years on private plans that enroll Medicare beneficiaries. The law stipulates that the plans must use the money to enhance the benefits they offer senior citizens, lower the fees they charge them, or boost payments to the doctors and hospitals who treat them.

In New York, Oxford Health Plans Inc. says it will, pending federal approval, start covering $1,200 of prescription drugs per year instead of the $250 and $500 it currently offers Medicare beneficiaries. In Minnesota, the nonprofit health-maintenance organization UCare Minnesota will reduce premiums by $15 a month for most of the 26,000 seniors it covers. In Philadelphia, seniors in one of Aetna's HMO options won't have to pay a monthly premium to the plan at all, beyond what the government-run program deducts from Social Security checks.

"This is the gold rush for the insurance industry," says Robert Laszewski, a consultant with insurance-industry clients.

Whether it is a good idea for Medicare beneficiaries to enroll in private plans is one of the most heated subjects in the debate over the future of the program. Private plans typically offer more benefits than traditional Medicare; the government program doesn't cover routine physicals, for example, but many private plans do.

However, the private plans generally aren't as flexible about choice of doctors and hospitals. Medicare generally covers visits to any doctor or hospital the patient chooses. But the private Medicare plans -- known as Medicare Advantage plans -- tend to have managed-care type networks, limiting patients to certain doctors and hospitals that have agreed to discounts.

While the Bush administration and many Republicans say that increasing the number of Medicare beneficiaries in private plans will help provide better care and eventually reduce Medicare spending, Democrats argue that the program will be weakened and seniors will end up with widely differing benefits depending on where they live.

Spring approaches, bringing with it: tax refund checks, mailings about the new health care you can get, the handover in Iraq, al Qaeda roundup in Pakistan, an end to the Democratic primaries, more good economic growth news, a $170 million ad campaign from Karl Rove... This is John Kerry's high water mark.

Posted by Orrin Judd at February 24, 2004 2:16 PM