The Department of Health and Human Services is constantly promoting Medicare and the Affordable Care Act, but some Republican senators are getting annoyed with one slogan: "free preventive services."
"We are concerned this is misleading," wrote Senators Tom Coburn, MD, Chuck Grassley, Richard Burr, John Thune, Michael Enzi and Pat Roberts, in a letter to HHS Secretary Kathleen Sebelius.
Specifically, they were referring to an HHS announcement last November that more than 25 million Medicare beneficiaries received "free preventive services" in 2013. "Thanks to the Affordable Care Act, millions of seniors have been able to receive important preventive services and screenings, such as an annual wellness visit, screening mammograms and colonoscopies, and smoking cessation at no cost to them," CMS Administrator Marilyn Tavenner said in the announcement.
While the phrase "no cost to them" qualifies that the services are not without costs, the six GOP senators criticized the spirit of the announcement for two reasons.
"First, everyone knows there is no such thing as a free lunch -- someone is paying for these benefits," they wrote. "So they are not truly free."
"Second, the release selectively highlights a small expansion of services law to seniors with fee-for-service Medicare provided by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act, while neglecting to fully inform readers about the $716 billion cut from Medicare plans and providers," they wrote.
"It is more accurate to discuss the lack of cost-sharing for a beneficiary than to suggest there are no costs borne by taxpayers," they argued, before asking HHS to amend the November press release, excise the use of the word free in past releases and refrain from using the word again.
From Medicaid expansion to ACA-mandated preventive services, conservatives and critics of the federal health law have argued that the use of the word "free" is inaccurate and counterproductive to goal of more cost-conscious healthcare.
Besides that, the senators took the opportunity to bring up another concern related to ACA funding changes set to bring reimbursement decreases to providers and Medicare Advantage health plans.
Without a repeal or tweak to those changes, some providers could "end their participation" in Medicare and end up "jeopardizing access for beneficiaries," the senators wrote, quoting possible scenarios laid out by Medicare's chief actuary, based on estimates that 15 percent of Medicare fee-for-service providers might not be able to sustain themselves as the reimbursement changes take effect over the next decade.