President Trump last Thursday unveiled an executive order entitled “Protecting and Improving Medicare for Our Nation’s Seniors,” which is seen as a rebuttal to “Medicare for All” legislation and includes broad directives to federal agencies about expanding the private Medicare Advantage part of the federal program.
A broad-brushed look at the plan shows the administration changing regulations to encourage Medicare Advantage benefit structures and plan designs; adjusting network adequacy requirements for Medicare Advantage plans to increase access to telehealth and other technologies; reducing physician administrative burden by eliminating certain billing requirements, conditions of participation, and supervision requirements, among other changes; ensuring Medicare payment and policies encourage competition and different sites for patients to access care; and cracking down on fraud and waste.
The president announced his plan at a rally in Florida, telling the crowd of mostly senior citizens, “I will never allow these politicians to steal your health care and give it away to illegal aliens.”