Coming Together to Support Medicare Advantage for All Americans

MEDICARE ADVANTAGE

Medicare Advantage (MA) is the third largest and perhaps the most successful federal health insurance program. We believe that the Medicare Advantage is the best platform upon which to build “Medicare for All” that really works for everybody. The Medicare Advantage Program already enjoys broad bipartisan approval in both the House and the Senate because it is so popular with the broad spectrum of the senior voting block, effectively delivers economic benefits to the taxpayers, and is a program that works for everybody. 293 Representatives and 60 Senators in the 116th congress support Medicare Advantage.

As a nation, we have only 27.9 million Americans without health insurance. We have less than 9 Million currently on Obamacare and other ACA grandfathered programs. After ten-plus years of Obamacare (ACA), the number of uninsured Americans has increased. Obamacare enrollment has decreased over the last four years and the 2020 enrollment is the lowest ever. The Congressional Budget Office (CBO) expects Obamacare enrollment to decline steadily over the coming decade. CBO projects the number of uninsured Americans will rise from 28 Million to 35 Million by the year 2030.

The federal government has the ability and the insight to fix the system. Our government already successfully operate health insurance systems that cover over 160 Million American citizens, including residents of legal, undocumented, and illegal status. In the second round of national debates for the Democrat candidates for President in 2020; every single candidate raised their hand supporting their willingness to provide health care to every immigrant illegally crossing the southern border. How much more should they be willing to do for us, tax-paying citizens?

Many of our people are happy with the Affordable Care Act; especially those that are eligible for federal subsidies. This includes the many health insurance companies that administer these programs and in general, the hospitals and doctors, who have all benefited economically from more people being insured. They all LOVE Obamacare. They do not want to kill the goose that laid the golden egg. But the system isn't working!

We need new legislation. Our politicians need to focus on the political reality of this issue. Every major piece of health care legislation that has ever been signed into law has been bipartisan. in 2020 the Democrats may own the health care issue with the American people, but they do not control the Senate. Nothing is going to fix the system in the next decade if it can not pass the Senate.

President Donald Trump is saying that needs to change the House of Representatives, keep the senate, and re-elect him as president for a second term to get health reform passed. Without Obama, Obamacare is an albatross around the necks of the Democrats. It has unquestionably been a damaging and failed program. Nancy Pelosi and Chuck Schumer support amending the ACA, but that is only because they recognize, as Hillary and Obama did, that Bernie's Medicare for All is beyond realistic political consideration.

See our National Policy Page for a more complete explanation. The Democrats Medicare for All proposals is a testament to Obamacare's failure. The holy grail of Senators Sander's presidential campaign is a pipe dream. When you look at the jurisdictional counties that President Obama and President Trump won, you see rates of health insurance to be 90-95 percent. While the concept of Medicare for All is popular among large urban coastal areas, it doesn't have the same appeal in the middle of the country. The Republicans have successfully weaponized their plans against the Democrats by labeling them as a step toward socialism, which is viewed negatively by most Americans. It would be, as President Trump has claimed, eviscerate of our Medicare Advantage program as we know it. Another problem is that most of the Democrats that are running against incumbent Republican Senators also don't support Medicare for All. So even if Senate Democratic candidates win their races, a majority of the senate will still NOT support Medicare for All.

If the plan is NOT going to pass the Senate no matter which party has control, it is a total waste of our time and attention. We need our politicians to support proposals that can actually be passed into law. And, that requires 218 votes in the House and 60 votes in the Senate and the only program that has demonstrated that level of support in this Congress is Medicare Advantage.

We believe that a Trump Medicare Advantage For All is a better way to organize our health care system to deliver affordable comprehensive health care to All Americans. The Democrat House and Senate bills on "Medicare for All" are being proposed more for political demagoguery and grandstanding, than from a sincere desire to do something to improve the health and well being of the American people.

The health of our people has never been worse shape. See our Wellness and Well Being Page for more information. Broadly speaking Democrats and Republicans agree on a lot when it comes to health care. Both political parties:

1. Are concerned with that need to make some serious changes to the present system.
2. Believe that every American should have affordable access to quality health care.
3. Agree that pre-existing health conditions should be covered.
4. Accept the fact that in order to fix the system, we have to change something.
5. Support the preservation of Medicare programs for seniors, including the Medicare Advantage Programs.
6. Accept that the role of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) as a key player and part of the solution.

At Trump-Medicare-Advantage-Plan.Com, we are in favor of Bipartisanship. Health care is not a red state or blue state issue. It requires a uniquely American solution. Health care should NOT divide us as a nation. It should bring us together! To fix our dysfunctional health care system, the MAA.com Family believe:

• all of the current legislative bills for extending the traditional Medicare for All Americans will go TOO far and cost too much!
• modifying the ACA will NOT go far enough,
• the highly successful Medicare Advantage Program, with its broad bipartisan support, will be just Right!!

We have the deepest respect for all the members of Congress, the numerous national organizations and the unions that have co-sponsored and endorsed Senator Bernie Sanders S. 1129 "Medicare for All" Bill and the single-payer and progressive advocates for Pramila Jayapal's H.R. 1384 Bill in the House of Representatives. However, we firmly believe there are several very important inalienable reasons why enacting these Bills will, as Warren Buffet has said, "probably make things even worse."

HOW CAN WE FIX THE PROBLEM?

We can fix the problems with a Trump Medicare Advantage plan. We can not fix these problems by forcing the health insurance companies out of the markets, unnecessarily increasing health insurance regulations, reducing competition, and illuminating health insurance options, all of which Obamacare has done over the last ten years.

Politicians can talk about Medicare for All but anyone that knows anything about the Medicare program knows that this talk needs to transform itself into positive political action. Medicare Advantage (Medicare Part C) is the most successful and popular health plan in America and therefore should be the starting point for any action. Extending it to everyone would at least NOT be a mistake. Today there is NO plan that is designed specifically to address our deplorable health condition. We are planning to go to the moon again and after that, we are going to go to Mars. I am sure that NASA is NOT going to suggest that we re-use the old technology from Apollo 11 in this effort. If we are NOT going to improve the health of the American people and successfully reduce the cost of health care, unless we commit ourselves, as a nation to achieving the lowest National Health Care GDP of any industrialized nation with NEW tools. In order to do that we have to change the architecture of our health insurance plans. We need to gear this new architecture toward improving the way we interact with the health plans as insureds and the way the medical profession treats our medical illnesses in the United States. Medicare for All will NOT do any of these important, in fact, critical things, unless we have the political will to re-design Medicare with the Apollo-style Trump Medicare Advantage plan.

The Health of the People: John F. Kennedy warned Americans in a Sports Illustrated article in the 1960s that we were getting soft. At that time only 15% of Americans were overweight. Now 66% of Americans are overweight. In fact, we lead the world with the highest percentage of overweight citizens in any country, followed closely by the English, who are in a close second place at 60%. Makes one think obesity might have something to do with industrial and financial power? For over the last 60 years, our government has presided over several disastrous Diet Pyramids, and now, thanks to Michele Obama, we have the "Diet Plate". We have also had two sets of national exercise guidelines and a growing crisis of chronic illness in this country; presided over by the federal Department of Health and Human Services and the Agriculture Department. Our National Health Care GDP is the highest in the world and ninety percent (90%) of it is spent treating chronic illness. Most of the chronic illness is directly related to health risks which can be reduced and/or eliminated with wellness and well-being lifestyle and proper medical care.

Competition in the Marketplace: While the incidence of chronic disease is the biggest reason our health care costs have gone through the roof. To make matters worse, the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) found in 2017 the Affordable Care Act (ACA) restricted non-group health insurance markets in the U.S. to the point that thirty-two percent (32%) of the jurisdictional counties had only one approved health insurance carrier. Shortly thereafter the New York Times confirmed that forty-five percent (45%) of the jurisdictional counties had either One or No approved Obamacare non-group health insurance carriers. The Heritage Foundation has recently confirmed reports that a majority of over fifty-two percent (52%) of the jurisdictional counties in the United States have only a single approved ACA carrier today. And, on top of that, the 2019 federal enrollment in the ACA programs has dropped down to just 8.4 Million people. The bottom line is that the American people are not being well-served by our representation in Congress nor by the Obamacare program that they created.

Our federal government has not effectively delivered affordable health care to the American people, neither under traditional Medicare nor under the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, even as our Congress has effectively delivered health insurance programs for themselves and some 8 Million other civil servants, which they can afford because we taxpayers are paying for it!

Obviously, we need to try something NEW. And, in so doing we should rely upon the programs that are affordable, like Medicare Advantage! Medicare Advantage is working for over 22 Million Americans and extending the program to everybody should be a no brainer and our highest national priority.

Medicare for All cannot pass the Senate: None of this political posturing we see in Washington D.C. is of any consequence, because, while "EVERYBODY TALKS ABOUT LOWERING THE HIGH COST OF HEALTH CARE IN THE UNITED STATES, NOBODY TALKS ABOUT IMPROVING THE HEALTH OF THE AMERICAN PEOPLE IN THE SAME SENTENCE." The one thing that "We the American People" All know, is that "All of Our Representatives in Congress"  know that NOTHING is going to happen; because the Republicans are NOT seriously talking with the Democrats about health insurance, even though we All know that ALL OF THE MEMBERS OF BOTH PARTIES KNOW WELL, THAT THEY CAN NOT PASS ANYTHING THAT IS NOT BIPARTISAN. So, in reality, all of this stuff that "We the American People" have to listen to on the debate stage and in the press, is just talk. That is why Medicare-Advantage-for-All.Com is here and why you are reading this web site.

THIS WEB SITE WANTS TO TEACH YOU HOW WE CAN GET  BOTH POLITICAL PARTIES TO COME TOGETHER! "Medicare for All" will fail" because, in it's present form, it can not pass the Republican-controlled Senate. How can any politician seriously consider a proposal that is purportedly to fix a potentially life and death health care situation for the America people, if the proposals they exposé are in a form that is unpalatable to the current U.S. Senate, and has no chance of actually becoming the law of the land?

Every single one of our politicians must be concerned about the state of the American health condition, above all else. We know that they all know the state of health. We sent them All the Fifth Edition of The True American in August of 2019. So we know that they either do know that facts or they should know that facts. In speaking about the state of Israel on June 4, 2019, Senator Bernie Sanders said that certain rightwing "demagogues" around the world are, " fanning hatreds instead of using their leadership positions to bring the people together around their common humanity." The fact of the matter is that he and every other member of Congress, who are sincere about wanting to find solutions to the problems with our health insurance, have to do it in a bipartisan manner. Medicare Advantage has a lot of BIPARTISAN support in Congress. Medicare-Advantage-For-All is, therefore the most realistic compromise that they can make for actually fixing our health care system today!

WHAT ARE THE ADVANTAGES OF MEDICARE-ADVANTAGE-FOR-ALL

We are striving to make the United States the first successful industrialized nation to develop a private-sector health care market that is capable of offering All Americans the tremendous benefits of well-paying employment, cutting-edge technology, breakthrough pharmacology, and the most advanced capability to treat illness and preserve health that the world has ever known. This is not all about being able to afford health insurance. This is about continuing the development of an industry that represents the best skills in the treatment of illness and injury and to do it in such a way as to enable us to offer these services to All Americans and to as many people as possible throughout the whole world. We are not just talking about those people who come to the United States for treatment and training.

We are the light of the world when it comes to medical care. Olivier Brandicourt, CEO of Sanofi, the largest biotech firm in Boston, headquartered in Paris, France, recently participated in a symposium. He feels strongly that this the most exciting time in the history of medicine. The combination of biology, technology, and our research in DNA and the Human Genome has an unprecedented potential to reduce illness and the cost of health care treatments. Good examples of this are the treatments developed for HIV and Hepatitis and the quantum leaps we have made in lowering the cost of treating these illnesses and improving the patient’s quality of life! Can you imagine what the treatment of HIV/Aids or Ebola virus in Africa would be without the vaccines developed in the United States?

Our Academic Medical Centers are pioneering the best treatment practices for managing the high risk and high-cost patients that account for 80% of the health care system costs overall. They are working with new total patient treatment models that are shaping a new paradigm of health care delivery for the very first time in the twentieth century. This type of innovation is saving lives and money here in the United States and it is improving health care delivery all around the world.

Most other countries are riding on our successes. While this may not be fair, what we all need to appreciate is that what we are able to accomplish in the United States is benefiting the health and well being of all the other nations of the world. While as an American, you may say, "I didn't sign up for that." You need to accept the fact that we benefit from this development too. And, we are capable of making these innovations in the medical treatment of illness available and affordable for All Americans.

We are the innovators! Our innovations in the medical field are happening here because we have a dynamic privately funded health care system that pays for it. Our system fuels innovation in pharmaceuticals, and medicine. The United States is the world leader, producing more than half of the world’s new medicines over the last decade. Today, 12 of the top 20 medical device companies are headquartered in the United States. In 2017, U.S. companies had more than 3,000 new pharmaceutical products in development. The percentage of all NCE’s (New Chemical Entities) that originated from U.S.-based companies rose from about 31 percent in the ‘70s and ‘80s to 42 percent in the ‘90s to 57 percent in the 2000s. This superior medical innovation not only creates life-saving drugs, but it boosts our economy. The biomedical industry employs more than four (4) million U.S. citizens and contributed $917 billion to the U.S. economy in 2009. The total new investment capital amounted to 48.3 Billion Dollars in 2014 alone. The cost of developing each new drug now exceeds $1.3 billion and takes an average of 12 years, and only a small percentage of new molecular entities ever reach the market.

Many people believe that the high cost of prescription drugs is largely inflated by pharmaceutical advertising and price gouging. Some believe they have a high cost of medical care in the United States is because we have a bunch of greedy health care providers sucking the lifeblood out of us. It usually follows that if you believe that, you also point to the fact that the United States is NOT at the top of the charts when it comes to many health status measurements collected by the World Bank and others. These arguments are used to justify the call for a Government takes over health care, single-payer, universal coverage, whatever? The assumption is that WE ARE DOING SOMETHING VERY WRONG! The Good News is, we believe we do not have it ALL Wrong. When you consider that medical professionals come from all over the world to be trained here, that our medical models for health care delivery are duplicated throughout the world, we are actually exporting health and well being to the rest of the world. Only then can you truly appreciate how large an important our health care system really is! And, how small our thinking is when we myopically focus on the problems and the weaknesses of our system, rather than the solutions! We are the Light of the World when it comes to health care. We are an industry leader. We do not have to nationalize our health care system to respond to the desperation of political will. We must muster the courage to make more of an investment in the health and well being of the American people and continue to show the rest of the world how it should be done.

Coming Together to Support Medicare-Advantage-For-All fix is one way to fix what is broken and NOT throw the Baby Out with the Bath Water. A properly designed Medicare-Advantage-For-All Americans will showcase our unique public-private partnership and it can deliver a True American Health Care system capable of achieving affordable and accessible for every American citizen. We will demonstrate to all the nations and to all the peoples of the world how best to maintain the health and well-being of all our citizens, by not repeating the missteps and mistakes that other countries may have made, but by building a health care system that they will continue to be their envy the world over.

“SUMMARY OF MEDICARE ADVANTAGE FOR ALL AMERICANS”

• Medicare Advantage for All Americans and the Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) are OK together. Obamacare may peacefully co-exist with Medicare Advantage for All Americans. There is no need to repeal or replace Obamacare. Americans should have the right to choose which plan is best for them.
• Medicare Advantage for All will be designed to attract young and middle-aged Americans, the 8.4 Million ACA participants, those who are currently covered by Medicaid, students, low wage workers, the disabled, unemployed, and all the people who comprise the 30 Million uninsured Americans, who are willing to buy affordable health insurance.
• Medicare Advantage for All will cost less per person than Obamacare and fee-for-service Medicare. Consequently, the taxpayers, the federal government, and program participants will all benefit from lower-cost health insurance.
• The program will be underwritten, insured, and administered with risk-based capitation reimbursements to competing for health plans that will work together with integrated networks of providers that have a proven track record for effectively delivering insurance Programs that Really Work for the American people.
• Medicare Advantage for All Americans will incorporate Jim DeMint’s Conservative Principles for Health Reform
• The rating of Medicare Advantage for All Americans will require the cohesive use of the collective buying power of the federal government to effectively contain, control, and reduce health care and Rx costs nationwide. See The True American Page.
• Medicare Advantage for All Americans will know No state boundaries, even as they will be subject to state insurance regulations. Multiple managed care plans will offer relatively uniform programs under the direction of CMS in all states and municipalities and compete effectively with ERISA approved short term, association, and other group insurance plans.
• The carriers for Medicare Advantage for All will be required to have wellness programs with a dedicated and coordinated focus on improving the physical and mental health and well-being of the American people and increasing their productivity in the workplace and the community. These programs will be designed and monitored by HHS’s Preventative Care Task Force which has been developing standards of care for the last thirty-five (35) years.
• Medicare Advantage for All Americans will be required to offer a special program for the growing number of low-wage workers in the United States. These programs will effectively integrate the primary care offered by our national Community Health Centers Network and Rural Health care providers with tertiary care for this under-served population. Any jurisdictional county that is not served by a well-organized health plan offering this program will have a Medicare Part C Fee for Service Plan option available. See the Benefits Page.
• Medicare Advantage for All Americans will correspond to and coordinate with constructive Medicaid work rules and Medicaid expansion plans and make it easier for people to get off the Medicaid rolls. The goal will be for the United States to achieve near 100% participation of All the citizens that want to be insured in this True American Way and are willing to buy affordable health insurance.
• Medicare Advantage for All Americans will allow maximum use of Health Savings Accounts and provide tax credits and premium subsidies to those Americans, who are least able to afford health insurance due to their incomes. Sliding scale premiums based on income will be charged for the optional program choices, the same way they are now for the ACA and traditional Medicare.
• Congress will fund Medicare Advantage Plans for All Americans with their across-the-board re-structuring of the Medicare Trust Funds. All arbitrary ACA taxes on certain businesses or certain taxpayers must be repealed, including the Cadillac taxes, investment income taxes, health insurance taxes, and medical device taxes which only hit select businesses and American households. President Obama described ACA as a deliberate wealth transfer. MAA is a deliberate Health Insurance Reform for all Americans and the cost will be fairly distributed to each according to their use of the program.

Bernie Sanders is campaigning to give everyone “Traditional Medicare for All”. His S. 1129, has 14 co-sponsors in the Senate. Last year's S. 1804 Bill proposed having the "Secretary" (Health and Human Services) by the insurer and handle all the details.  The companion Conyers / Jayapal House Bills are all for creating a Big Government insurance company. At Medicare-Advantage-For-All, we liked Bernie's idea so much, we developed our own Draft Senate Bill asking the Secretary of Health and Human Services to use the resources of his Department to come up with a program and report back to Congress on it, so that it can be debated and acted on in a timely fashion. Hillary Clinton criticized Bernie’s proposal as being unrealistic, perhaps because it offers an idea that goes beyond that which she believed was realistic in her 2016 presidential bid. Elizabeth Warren has been a strong proponent of the federal regulation required by Obamacare and she has urged Democrat candidates to promote health care in their campaigns nationwide. She has introduced a Senate bill called the Consumer Health Insurance Protection Act, fondly referred to as ACA 2.0/. Most of the new Democrats elected in the midterm elections used health care as a winning issue for the 116th Congress. Bernie’s proposal for extending Medicare for All is soundly criticized by Republicans as being too expensive. Republicans believe his proposal will cost the nation $32.6 Trillion Dollars over the first ten years, and they are probably right. Since our national debt is now only 20.7 Trillion dollars, the idea of doubling the national debt is NOT going to happen while Republicans control the Senate and the White House.

Medicare Part C – Medicare Advantage has broad bipartisan support in Congress. The current program appeals to both sides of the aisle for good reasons. It extends Medicare Advantage coverage eligibility to persons over the age of 65 without any pre-existing condition exclusions and in most cases without the need to pay any premiums out of pocket. It is a proper insurance plan in the traditional sense, in that the insurance carriers take the risk. it will give us an opportunity to adopt an integral health and wellness program that will save trillions of dollars and put our economy on solid grounds with the other industrialized nations of the world.

If we are successful in getting Medicare Advantage plans re-engineered and extended to All Americans, it would NOT require market stabilization funds and the 3R Risk abatement programs and the CSR payments. Medicare-Advantage-For-All (MAA) eliminates the need for special federal and state funding to support the marketplace exchanges. It would continue to use capitation financing (which is the very basis of the Republicans previously proposed Medicaid reforms). It would NOT require insurance carriers to raise their rates in order to expand services under the inflationary 80 - 85 Percent Loss Ratio requirements. Carriers will have the benefit of competition in providing benefits to the American people. Health insurers are NOT the villain's everybody makes them out to be. They are like every other American business. They work best when they have competition but when the government steps in to regulate and direct their business operations and carve out monopolistic market practices the American people lose every time. The ACA is a perfect example of this phenomenon.

Most important to our efforts, the MAA financing can be structured to make the program affordable to at least 80% of the uninsured population and any interested ACA participants, Some American citizens will never want or need such a program. Evidence suggests that even at zero dollars ($0.) premium; 10% to 20% of the uninsured would prefer NOT to sign up for a health plan. A Harvard University study of mature Massachusetts low-income health insurance programs showed a significant degree of resistance to signing up, even with generous premium subsidies. They found that subsidies worth 75% of the premium, would attract less than 50% of those low-income eligibles. And, even if the subsidy was 90%, at least twenty percent (20%) of those eligible would choose to remain uninsured. In a Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF) study in 2016, twenty-seven percent (27%) did not sign up for a free Medicaid program. Another KFF study in 2017 found that seventy percent (70%) of uninsured people that were able to purchase an ACA Bronze plan at zero premium, or less than the cost of the individual mandate tax penalty, chose to remain uninsured. Further studies are needed to identify the various reasons for this, but it is clear that low-income adults have become strongly accustomed to being without health insurance and are OK with that. In the Medicare Advantage For All system, these are the folks that will be covered by provider free care obligations and uncompensated care pools.

When we extend MAA to everyone, one thing is FOR SURE, Medicare-Advantage-For-All (MAA) will cost a lot less than ACA. In 2015, if we had just purchased for all the ACA participants' high-quality health insurance and paid all the premiums, we would have saved well over 60 Billion Dollars. Current Medicare Advantage plans cost less than the ACA plans, and if we re-engineer MAA properly, we will be saving lots of money on an MAA option for under age 65 participants. In addition, we would eliminate the need for selective taxes by establishing a more equitable and American funding base.

The United States has made great strides toward the goal of making affordable health insurance available to everybody, but our current Congressional efforts are detracting from this progress. ACA did not do the job. It did not attract the majority of the uninsured. It turned into a small give-away program for a lot of people with serious health risks. We do need to help these Americans, but we need to do a much better job of it. In 2018, the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) confirmed that ALL of the House and Senate Republican Obamacare Repeal bills would NOT have done a good job either. Medicare Part C, which has been successful for twenty (20) years now WILL DO what both political Parties are striving to achieve. It is A Program That Really Works! We must lift the yoke of ACA slavery on the shoulders of our taxpayers and liberate those Americans that deserve high-quality health insurance but are not able to afford it.

As a Supporter, you will be helping our efforts to convince the 116th Congress to put aside their partisan politics and take up the care of the health and well-being of “We the People” (to whom they represent), if the United States is going to be a successful beacon of freedom and democracy around the World. We the People do not have to accept the defeat of socialized medicine. We must successfully convince the Democrats and the Republicans that Medicare Part C is the “Best Answer to Repeal and Replace Obamacare”. We will ask the key members of the 116th Congress in both political parties and their staff for their Support, to read this website and our proposals and the more detailed “The Best Bi-Partisan Answer to Repeal and Replace Obamacare” which was hand-delivered to many in 2017. We hope you become a Supporter of our effort.