Is the beloved program on its last legs?
By Trudy Lieberman
Harper’s Magazine, Nov. 2016
On a brilliantly sunny afternoon last October, twenty-eight New Yorkers—some clutching walkers, others in wheelchairs—crammed into a tiny space at the back of Manhattan’s East Side Cafe. While waiters set down blueberry coffee cake, grape jelly, coffee, and orange juice, Maxine Davis, a Medicare account representative from Empire BlueCross BlueShield, raced through the first several pages of the company’s sales booklet. She was promoting MediBlue Plus (HMO), a private plan that Empire offers as an alternative to traditional Medicare. “The maximum amount you pay out of pocket for major medical expenses is sixty-seven hundred dollars. This makes it a predictable health-care cost. We never make you pay more,” Davis promised.
One senior asked, What if someone had cancer?—a diagnosis whose costs could quickly escalate. The patient’s share of such costs was “written in black and white,” Davis answered, vaguely referring him to page 6 of the booklet while noting that “a lot of people would be excited about a twenty-dollar copay for chiropractors.” Page 6 didn’t actually address his question, but pages 7 and 12 did. There he could have read that beneficiaries were on the hook for 20 percent of the cost for radiation treatment and 20 percent of the cost for chemotherapy, up to the $6,700.
That crucial point probably went over the heads of most attendees at the coffee shop. Lured to the sales event with a mailing that promised no monthly premiums for their plan coverage, they came seeking a way to stretch their budgets; “free” health insurance is almost as irresistible as free food. One man wanted to know if the next year’s premium would be free as well. Davis simply said, “For 2016 there’s a zero-premium plan.” Clearly eager to reiterate that magic number, she added, “All your preventive care is covered at zero dollars.” She went on to pitch as special perks such services as colonoscopies and mammograms, which the federal government makes available for free to all Medicare beneficiaries.
Davis didn’t dwell on the fine print. And she knew all the right words to get the seniors to sign up.