Berwick Admits: If You Like What You Have, You CAN’T Keep It
Testifying before the Ways and Means Committee, CMS Administrator Donald Berwick just admitted that businesses are in a “transition phase” regarding retiree health coverage, and that there will be “some shifts” as a result of changes to the retiree drug subsidy in the health care law. This statement is consistent with the Medicare actuary, who found in the annual trustees report (page 183) that nine out of 10 retirees will lose their current coverage. For these reasons, the Medicare actuary last month said that the President’s promise was “not true in all cases” – and it would appear that President Obama’s own CMS Administrator agrees this promise is false.
UPDATE: In response to further questioning from Rep. Reichert, Dr. Berwick wouldn’t answer a simple yes-or-no question about whether or not he would support amending any provision of the health care law that would lead to seniors losing their current coverage – calling it a “hypothetical” query. But earlier Dr. Berwick admitted there will be “some shifts” whereby retirees would lose their current employer-provided drug coverage and be placed in a government-funded plan instead. So which is it – will seniors be able to keep their current coverage or not? Millions of beneficiaries are waiting to know…