We Should Channel People Into Medicare Advantage Plans Where They Won ’t Have Amputations or Go Blind (Part 2)

By GEORGE HALVORSON Former Kaiser Permanente CEO George Halvorson has written on THCB on and off over the years, most notably with his proposal for Medicare Advantage for All post-COVID. He wrote a piece in Health Affairs last year arguing with the stance of Medicare Advantage of Don Berwick and Rick Gilfillan (Here’s their piece pt1, pt2). We also published his criticism (Part 1. Part 2. Part 3) of Medpac’s analysis of Medicare Advantage.  Now Medpac is meeting again and George is wondering why they don’t seem to care about diabetic foot amputations. We published part one last week. This is part two– Matthew Holt We have more amputations and we have more people going blind in our fee for service Medicare program today because we buy care so badly and because we have no quality programs or care linkages for our chronically Ill patients and our low income people in that program. We have far better care in our Medicare Advantage programs at multiple levels today, and we should be building on that better care for everyone. The important and invisible truth is that we have major successes in providing better care to Medicare Advantage members across the entire spectrum of that package of care. The sad truth is that MedPac actually keeps those huge differences in care performance by the plans secret from the Congress and from the American public for no discernable or legitimate reaso...
Source: The Health Care Blog - Category: Consumer Health News Authors: Tags: Medicare Uncategorized CMS George Halvorson Medicare Advantage Medicare Advantage Special Needs Plans Source Type: blogs