[The Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper sprinkled its coverage of an
intensifying fight over Medicare with ads purchased by an organization
that promotes private Medicare Advantage plans.]
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WASHINGTON POST RUNS MEDICARE NEWSLETTER SPONSORED BY INSURANCE LOBBY
FRONT GROUP  
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Jake Johnson
February 10, 2023
Common Dreams
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_ The Jeff Bezos-owned newspaper sprinkled its coverage of an
intensifying fight over Medicare with ads purchased by an organization
that promotes private Medicare Advantage plans. _

A screengrab shows an ad paid for by the Coalition for Medicare
Choices and placed in The Washington Post on February 10, 2023,
(Photo: Coalition for Medicare Choices via The Washington Post)

 

The Friday morning edition of _The Washington Post_'s Health 202
newsletter
[[link removed]] featured
coverage of the intensifying back-and-forth between the Biden
administration and congressional Republicans over Medicare, with each
side accusing the other of wanting to cut the program.

But the newspaper's ostensibly neutral, both-sides coverage of the
high-stakes healthcare fight was interspersed with ads purchased by
the Coalition for Medicare Choices, an innocuously named organization
that serves as a front group for the private insurance industry's
powerful lobbying group, America's Health Insurance Plans (AHIP).

The _Post_, owned by billionaire Jeff Bezos, states in the email
version of its newsletter that the Friday coverage was "presented by"
the Coalition for Medicare Choices, which bills itself
[[link removed]] as a "national grassroots
organization" while acknowledging—in small font at the bottom of its
website—that it's "powered by AHIP."

The large banner ad positioned at the top of the _Post_'s newsletter
features a senior accompanied by text that reads, "Don't Cut My Care."

[A screenshot shows The Washington Post's February 10 newsletter.]

[A screenshot shows The Washington Post's February 10 newsletter.]

The sidebar ad makes clear that the Coalition for Medicare Choices is
concerned not about traditional Medicare, but about the finances of
Medicare Advantage—a privately run program funded by the federal
government.

The supposed "cut" highlighted by the ads refers to the Biden
administration's 2024 payment plan
[[link removed]] for
Medicare Advantage.

Insurance industry groups and their Republican allies in
Congress claim
[[link removed]] that the
payment proposal outlined by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid
Services (CMS) would result in a $3 billion cut to Medicare Advantage
plans—a small fraction of large Medicare Advantage providers' annual
revenues.

The Biden administration says the insurance industry and the GOP are
"cherry-picking" numbers and insists the CMS plan would entail a
limited increase, not a cut, in payments to Medicare Advantage plans,
which are notorious for overbilling
[[link removed]] the
federal government and denying patients necessary care. The federal
government expects to pay more than $6 trillion
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Medicare Advantage issuers over the next eight years.

CMS has also proposed a rule
[[link removed]] that
would allow the federal government to claw back Medicare Advantage
payments that were distributed improperly as a result of industry
overbilling—a crackdown that the U.S. public overwhelmingly
supports
[[link removed]].

Republicans, who often conflate traditional Medicare and Medicare
Advantage, have falsely described
[[link removed]] the new
CMS rule as a Medicare Advantage cut.

"So-called 'Medicare Advantage' plans are not Medicare," Linda
Benesch, communications director for the progressive advocacy group
Social Security Works, told _Common Dreams _on Friday. "They are
private plans run by corporations for the purpose of extracting as
much money out of Medicare beneficiaries and the government as
possible."

"Republicans, desperate to deflect from their own plans to cut
Medicare, are claiming that limiting the annual increase in payments
to these private plans is 'cutting Medicare,'" Benesch added. "Nothing
could be further from the truth. By limiting the payments, the Biden
administration is defending Medicare by slightly leveling the playing
field between for-profit plans and actual Medicare. This is only a
small first step. The Biden administration should do far more to
regulate for-profit plans and protect Medicare beneficiaries."

Diane Archer, the president of Just Care USA and a senior adviser on
Medicare at Social Security Works, added in a statement to _Common
Dreams_ that "to strengthen benefits and rein in costs for everyone
with Medicare, President Biden and Kevin McCarthy should agree to end
the tens of billions of dollars in overpayments to Medicare Advantage
plans."

"The public strongly opposes this massive government waste and
Medicare Advantage profiteering, as should policymakers on both sides
of the aisle," Archer

"So-called 'Medicare Advantage' plans are not Medicare. They are
private plans run by corporations for the purpose of extracting as
much money out of Medicare beneficiaries and the government as
possible."

It's hardly unusual for corporate media outlets in the U.S. to publish
newsletters sponsored by business groups with a vested interest in the
topic being covered, whether it's Medicare, drug prices, or Big Tech.

In October, the new media outlet _Semafor_sparked widespread derision
[[link removed]] and
outrage by launching a climate newsletter sponsored by the oil giant
Chevron, one of the world's biggest climate villains
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As _The Lever_noted
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look at the corporate-sponsored content of _Punchbowl News _and
other publications, "These kinds of editorial choices are being made
so frequently, they aren't even conscious decisions anymore—they are
media culture."

"While it's not accurate to say there is an explicit newsroom quid pro
quo in such editorial focus," the outlet continued, "it's also
ridiculous to presume that all that cash from corporate sponsors has
no influence at all."

The Coalition for Medicare Choices has been making use of the
corporate media's embrace of sponsored content for years, placing its
defenses of the fraud-riddled
[[link removed]] Medicare
Advantage program and fearmongering about looming cuts in prominent
outlets such as 
[[link removed]]_Politico
[[link removed]]_.

In addition to touting the supposed benefits of Medicare Advantage,
the insurance lobbying group that controls the coalition has lobbied
aggressively
[[link removed]] against
efforts to include hearing, dental, and vision coverage in traditional
Medicare.

As _The American Prospect_'s Robert Kuttner wrote in a column
[[link removed]] last
week, "Medicare Advantage plans are popular and they are rapidly
crowding out public Medicare" because they provide coverage that
traditional Medicare doesn't, including hearing, dental, and vision.

Roughly half of the Medicare population was enrolled in a Medicare
Advantage plan last year, according to
[[link removed]] the
Kaiser Family Foundation.

"Despite the extra coverage ostensibly provided, studies have found
that Medicare Advantage plans are more profitable than most other
health insurance industry products, because of the opportunities they
provide to game the system," Kuttner noted. "And that suggests that
there is a much larger problem here that won’t be solved by a
cat-and-mouse game of more aggressive audits—creeping
privatization."

"Partial privatization insidiously leads to more privatization,
leaving government to pay the added expense," he added. "Despite the
promises of greater efficiency, it doesn't save costs but adds costs,
as more money goes to industry middlemen and government has to spend
more on monitoring... Medicare for All doesn't work if it includes
privatized Medicare Advantage. Best to keep public programs public."

* Medicare
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* health insurance
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* Washington Post
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