Medicare Advantage cuts, disproportionately rural, could be key to health care reform passage

One of the major roadblocks in the way of Senate health care reform is the amount of cuts to Medicare to fund the new program. Most of the cuts in the House-passed bill would come from Medicare Advantage, the program designed in the hope that private companies could provide Medicare benefits more cheaply, Brian Faler of Bloomberg reports.

Since more money in Medicare Advantage goes to rural areas than in the rest of Medicare, and rural lawmakers have more power in the Senate, Democrats there are looking to cities for cuts, Faler reports. The gap in the approach “is as wide as on any other issue in the bill,” Brian Biles, former staff director of the House Ways and Means subcommittee on health, told Faler. (Read more)

Democratic Sen. Jon Tester of Montana proposed an amendment Wednesday to the Senate bill to increase support of rural health programs. Tester had been uncommitted on the bill, but told Mike Dennison of the Billings Gazette he believes it will extend health coverage to most who lack it, lower health care premiums for many and slow the growth of health costs. Tester's amendment would require at least 20 percent of $15 billion worth of public health grants in the bill to be set aside for programs in rural areas. (Read more)