Luring Customers From Medicare
Source: By MILT FREUDENHEIM, New York Times, September 22, 2006
For years, private insurers have offered alternatives to the federal Medicare program that are meant to give patients lower-cost options than the government coverage provides. More than 7 million people now subscribe to such plans, out of a total Medicare population of 42.5 million. But suddenly a type of private insurance plan is gaining ground that looks very similar to the basic coverage long available to anyone with a federally issued Medicare card. And the government is paying the private insurance industry a subsidy of 11 percent per patient, on average, to provide it.
.......Critics see the trend as further evidence that the government is paying private industry to take Medicare off its hands.