According to www.usatoday.com, "One of the largest spending cuts Congress could rely on to pay for an overhaul of the nation's health care system comes from a Medicare program President Obama has called a "wasteful" subsidy for the health insurance industry.
Don't tell that to cancer survivor Maurice Engleman, 82, who says the controversial Medicare Advantage program — which allows seniors to buy Medicare coverage through private insurance companies — helped him beat cancer.
"There was a seamless link between the medical support and the emotional support," said Engleman, who was diagnosed with tongue cancer last year within a week of his wife's death. "I don't believe Medicare would have taken care of the kind of services I required."
I am really please that your correspondent in in cancer remission.. What needs to be understood is that if any medicare beneficiary wishes coverage for the 20 percent medicare does not cover you have to sign up for additional insurance, ie MEDI-GAPE, OR a MEDICARE SUPPLIMENT policy. Medicare Advantage is a suppliment policy that is greatly substidised by the government as a result of the last Bush adminiistrations assistance to the insurance companiess. I sold medicare policies for a number of yeas to earn a living and am now retired with both my wife and I being medicare benificiares, paying in excess of 1200 per year for a suppliment to cover other medical expenses which leaves a considerable out of pocket expense.