Cuts Expected to Subsidies for Private Medicare Plans - WSJ.com

 

By VANESSA FUHRMANS

The government late Monday is expected to set in stone the 2010 rates it will pay health insurers to run private Medicare plans. Most signs suggest that cuts are coming in the subsidies that the industry got during the Bush administration.

 

Stocks of health insurers were sucked into a surprise tailspin in February after Medicare officials signaled they planned an effective 5% cut in those payments after formula adjustments. Insurers, medical societies and others have had six weeks to give regulators their arguments before the payment rates become final for next year.

 

Their arguments, plus an effort by 17 senators from both parties who on Friday urged Medicare to reconsider the way it calculated the effective cuts, could sway the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services to compromise on the new payment rates, as the federal agency has in previous years. But its new management hasn't given any hint of letting up on efforts to rein in federal subsidies for the private-sector Medicare plans.....

Cuts Expected to Subsidies for Private Medicare Plans - WSJ.com