This Wall Street Journal editorial is misguided and directly conflicts with a major investigative report on Medicare Advantage (MA) plans done by the paper in August. While it is true that Medicare is making it more difficult for MA plans to overcharge Medicare, these plans are still making tremendous profits while harming providers with low payments and hurting patients by denying coverage. The best evidence of this point is the massive advertising push by MA plans during this fall's open enrollment.
As the WSJ’s own Investigative Report clarifies, MA plans manipulate the coding system to increase their payments. This editorial describes Medicare's efforts to reduce that coding manipulation as Kamala Harris making cuts to Medicare. The real problem that all these stories have in common is that coding is exceedingly complex and, therefore, open to manipulation. The only reform that will meaningfully address these problems is to stop using coding for payment to providers or insurers. There are alternative solutions - go to www.thejourneys-end.org for information on those solutions.
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