HHS Medicare Advantage Shift Has Political Implications.

Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar, in a piece for the AP (4/20) titled, "Obama Administration Eases Pain Of Medicare Cuts," says, "Millions of seniors in popular private insurance plans offered through Medicare will be getting a reprieve from some of the most controversial cuts" in President Obama's healthcare law. In a "policy shift critics see as political, the Health and Human Services department has decided to award quality bonuses to hundreds of Medicare Advantage plans rated merely average." These bonuses could "head off service cuts that would have been a headache for Obama and Democrats in next year's elections" because many of the "roughly 11 million Medicare Advantage enrollees are in plans rated average." The AP notes that recently, two GOP lawmakers sent a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius in which they "questioned what they termed the administration's 'newfound support' for Medicare Advantage."