Your tax dollars are now paying for seniors’ golf clubs, ski passes, and pet toys – thanks to a Medicare Advantage loophole that’s spiraling into a trillion-dollar taxpayer nightmare.
At a Glance
- Medicare Advantage plans now cover non-medical perks like golf equipment, ski passes, pet supplies, and social club memberships
- These expanded benefits will cost taxpayers an additional $1 trillion over the next decade
- Overpayments have skyrocketed from $18 billion to $77 billion annually in recent years
- 48% of plans now offer “flex cards” averaging $966 in non-medical benefits
- Both Republicans and Democrats see cutting these overpayments as a potential source of savings
Your Medicare Tax Dollars at Play… Literally
Remember when Medicare was about, I don’t know, actual healthcare? Those days are apparently over. Thanks to the Bipartisan Budget Act of 2018 (because terrible ideas often come with bipartisan support), Medicare Advantage plans have morphed from covering necessary medical expenses to subsidizing your neighbor’s golf hobby and Fluffy’s premium cat litter. Yes, you read that correctly. The program created to provide cost-effective healthcare for America’s seniors is now picking up the tab for leisure activities and pet care.
“ski passes at resorts around the country” – Select Health
In 2024, a staggering 10 million Medicare beneficiaries will receive these non-medical “supplemental benefits.” Nearly half of all Medicare Advantage plans now offer “flex cards” averaging $966 in benefits that can be used for everything from hunting licenses to hairstyling services. Select Health proudly advertises these as “activities to help beneficiaries live a healthier life” – because apparently nothing screams “preventative healthcare” like a day on the golf course or the ski slopes.
From Kitty Litter to Budget Litter
The original concept behind Medicare Advantage was simple and sensible: offer private alternatives to traditional Medicare that would provide more efficient care at lower costs. But like most government programs that start with good intentions, bureaucrats and special interests couldn’t resist turning it into a fiscal dumpster fire. What began as limited supplemental benefits for genuinely health-related services has ballooned into a free-for-all of ridiculous non-medical perks targeted at attracting the healthiest seniors.
These aren’t minor budget items, folks. Medicare Advantage plans have seen payments skyrocket from 112% of estimated costs in 2015 to 120% in 2024. Overall overpayments have exploded from $18 billion to $77 billion annually, with supplemental benefits per beneficiary ballooning from $960 to $2,520. The Committee for a Responsible Federal Budget estimates these excesses will cost $1.2 trillion over the next decade. That’s TRILLION with a T – money that could have been used to shore up Medicare’s actual health benefits or, heaven forbid, not borrowed from future generations in the first place.
The Golden Ticket for Insurers
The genius of this boondoggle from the insurers’ perspective is how it creates a perfect self-perpetuating cycle of profits. By offering attractive non-medical benefits like social club memberships and sporting equipment, Medicare Advantage plans disproportionately attract healthier seniors who can actually use these perks. This leads to systematic overpayments since the government’s reimbursement formula doesn’t fully account for this “cherry-picking” of healthier enrollees.
Meanwhile, the Congressional Budget Office completely underestimated the cost impact of these expanded benefits. Their actuaries apparently never imagined that when given the opportunity to classify virtually anything as a “health benefit,” insurers would do exactly that. The eligibility for Special Supplemental Benefits for the Chronically Ill (SSBCI) has expanded so dramatically that practically any senior with a single chronic condition can qualify for these luxury perks. It’s almost as if giving away free stuff is popular and leads to increased enrollment – who would have thought?
A Rare Opportunity for Bipartisan Fiscal Sanity
In a bizarre twist that shows just how obvious this problem has become, even politicians from opposite ends of the spectrum agree something should be done. Senator Elizabeth Warren and former Senate candidate Mehmet Oz both support cutting Medicare Advantage overpayments – though predictably for different purposes. Democrats typically want to use the savings to fund more government programs, while Republicans see an opportunity to reduce the burden on working taxpayers or offset tax cuts.
The solution here seems painfully obvious: restore Medicare Advantage to its original purpose as a cost-effective alternative to traditional Medicare focused on actual healthcare. Pet supplies and ski passes have no business being funded by taxpayer dollars, especially when Medicare’s trust fund is facing insolvency and younger generations are already saddled with astronomical national debt. It’s time to stop the fiscal insanity and put an end to this ridiculous expansion of benefits before the entire system collapses under its own weight.
