Pushing through a reform plan successfully could depend on how much the administration is willing to pull back from its demand for a differentiated benefit to appease Democrats who are ready to make a stand on the issue. The bottom line remains the same, that seniors will get prescription drugs," Fleischer said.White House spokesman Ari Fleischer when questioned Tuesday about how flexible the administration would be told reporters: "The president supports allowing seniors to make their own selections so that seniors who have needs for certain types of preventive care or treatment or drugs at a certain level will be able to sign up for that level.Insurance experts say risk corridors –- contractual language that requires the government share in the risk and reimburse insurers for some overages –- are being negotiated on Capitol Hill and are essential to getting risk-PPOs to participate.
The White House is beginning Bush's re-election efforts and making Medicare a key issue to bolster what critics say is a lacking and less-than-compassionate domestic agenda.PPOs are looking for incentives to participate in a Medicare plan.There are two types of PPOs –- risk and non-risk.As negotiations continue, the PPOs wait for a sign lawmakers have listened to their arguments as well.
That forced hundreds of HMOs to pull out because reimbursements fell far below costs. Risk PPOs, such as the one operated by Blue Cross Blue Shield, assume some of the cost risk of providing care. "What the president wants is to get away from a cookie-cutter approach to health care and allow individuals, empower individuals who are seniors also, to have choices and selections, the same choices and selections seniors have when they're 64. If it costs more to provide health care than the government pays for the services, the insurer takes the loss. Other seniors who may want to have a different choice with different levels will be free to sign up for that level as well.. Why shouldn't they be able to have those when they turn 65? That's the type of Medicare that the president wants to create.
Remembering the problems with Medicare + Choice, they see the government funding that HMO risk-sharing plan at a lower rate than given its own traditional Medicare."There is still a disconnect Tilting pad journal bearing between the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (which runs Medicare) and what's happening in the real world, when you get outside the Beltway," Bill Ross, an administrator with South Bay IPA in Los Angeles told United Press International
