Letter to Speaker Nancy Pelosi - Hern leads Ways & Means Republicans on letter in support of Medicare Advantage

Letter

We write to urge you to protect seniors' access to private health care coverage. Congress must work together to protect and improve Medicare, not move closer to insolvency. Recent proposals reportedly under consideration in the upcoming partisan Reconciliation bill threaten the future of Medicare Advantage and put Medicare's financial stability at risk.

As you know, roughly 26 million seniors1 have enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans that offer either hearing, dental, or vision coverage and in 2021, 98% of Medicare beneficiaries were eligible for Medicare plans that offered some hearing, dental, and vision benefits2. Additionally, more than 94% of seniors enrolled in individual Medicare Advantage plans have insurance that typically pays 50%-100% of the cost of common dental services, much more than the meager 10% proposed in recent Democratic legislative proposals3,4. Expanding Medicare programs to offer benefits with less coverage than already available is nonsensical and deeply misleading to seniors.

The choice between continuing to modernize our Medicare system or doubling down on the outdated Fee-for-Service system comes at a critical time. The recent 2021 Medicare Trustees Report estimates that the program will become insolvent in 2026. With this projection, we are officially the closest we've been to Medicare insolvency since 1998.

With recent spending reaching several trillion dollars to fight the pandemic, and the trust fund being exhausted in the next five years, we should be taking steps to ensure our commitment to our nation's seniors by building on the successes of Medicare Advantage. Now is not the time to put misleading political priorities ahead of the financial certainty of seniors' healthcare benefits.

Sincerely,

________________________

1https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/medicare-advantage-in-2021-enrollment-update-and-key-trends/

2https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/medicare-advantage-2021-spotlight-first-look/

3https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/medicare-advantage-in-2021-premiums-cost-sharing-out-of-pocket-limits-and-supplemental-benefits/

4https://www.kff.org/medicare/issue-brief/drilling-down-on-dental-coverage-and-costs-for-medicare-beneficiaries/

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