Slow down and read. Think it through.

The one's that opt for Medicare Advantage have enough money to buy insurance so they have more choice than what Medicare offers. The insurers get a premium from grandma and grandpa plus get money from taxpayers through Medicare. The idea was to invite the private marketplace into Medicare to increase competition, offer choice and decrease costs. It didn't work. The private market is simply competing to offer grandma and grandpa more choices and that is driving costs up.

The grandma and grandpa you are speaking of who have normal Medicare are not affected. The cuts are to Medicare Advantage - the private marketplace that taxpayers have been subsidizing for the hopes that it will reduce costs someday. The reality is that it didn't work and now it is time to say enough, taxpayers will only pay what it normally pays to non-Medicare Advantage (normal Medicare) doctors.

Understand?

It gets things back on track as they were getting worse and the industry didn't have a solution. The future was going to be that you paid more but as soon as you met a limit or were diagnosed with an expensive disease, insurance would drop you to keep costs low for everyone else. So, why have insurance at all? The costs are so high, that has been the decision for many especially knowing that in an emergency, the hospital can't turn them away by law. Hospitals simply pass the costs on to the insured.

The conservative value is that everyone takes personal responsibility and buy insurance so that costs are not passed on to anyone. If everyone is covered, the actuaries can determine the percentage of the population that are sick and ensure that their costs are covered by the policy pool - - that's what insurance is supposed to be about. It breaks down when actuaries have to figure on covering the costs of those not paying into the insurance pool.

The Medicare Advantage cuts are appropriate. It was invented as a way to reduce costs through increased competition, a government incentive to invite the private market to offer plans for older people on Medicare and to offer more choice for them.

Folks drop Medicare if they think a private Medicare Advantage is a better deal while private companies offer plans if they think they can make a profit. This choice was created by government and it costs taxpayers money. What has resulted is that insurers are competing to cover more services as opposed to offering the lowest price. The Medicare Advantage experiment has concluded that sometimes competition doesn't always drive costs down. Sometimes, it drives costs up.

A conservative value is to decrease costs to the taxpayer. Medicare Advantage turned out to be a rip-off to taxpayers (currently, a 12% premium taxpayers are actually paying more for Medicare Advantage fees than they would with normal Medicare). The cuts are not to normal Medicare. The cuts are a tapering of what the taxpayers will pay to the Medicare Advantage doctors in order to get them back on track with normal Medicare costs and stop the costs from continuing to rise.

The Medicare Advantage pool of insured is separate from the insurers pool of PPACA insured. They are not using any of the money they "saved" from paying Medicare Advantage doctors to lower the cost of insured in PPACA plans. The savings go directly to the Medicare Trust Fund.