Status of the Medicare Plus Choice Program
United States House of Representatives
Committee on Ways and Means
December 4, 2001
Representative Pete Stark (D-CA):
"I'd say, Madam Chair, that it's perhaps time that we recognize that less than 15 percent of the seniors have signed up for these Plus Choice plans. They have caused more problems than all the rest of Medicare put together. The premium support plan that the Medicare Commission came up with is a blatant attempt to shove people into these Medicare Plus Choice plans. So when you don't have one in eight people who like them, why don't we just can them, use the money to support the Medicare system, provide perhaps a federal Medigap policy that would cover all of our beneficiaries fairly? And, one of these days, we might even get around to a drug benefit, if we stop giving big tax breaks to wealthy people."
<http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/uploaded_files/ACF2D.pdf>http://www.kaisernetwork.org/health_cast/uploaded_files/ACF2D.pdf