This summer, when Republicans initially resisted curbing the excessive federal reimbursements to Medicare Advantage plans, the Wonk Room argued that the government’s overpayments to Medicare Advantage “raise costs for beneficiaries in the traditional program.” This is because Medicare premiums increase with Medicare costs, and overpayments by Medicare “drive premiums higher than they otherwise would be.” As a result, the millions of seniors enrolled in traditional Medicare “are charged higher premiums each month to help subsidize the cost of these overpayments.”

And while the bill that passed reduced the extra reimbursements to private plans, it did not completely eliminate “those extra payments.” According to a new study by Commonwealth Fund, the government is still spending billions subsidizing private insurance companies:

- “Private Medicare Advantage (MA) plans will be paid an average 12.4 percent more per enrollee in 2008 compared to what the same enrollee would have cost in the traditional Medicare fee-for-service program.”

- Medicare costs increased by $33 billion “in the five years since 2004 because of extra payments to MA private plans.”

- “In 2008, for each of the 8.6 million Medicare enrollees in managed care, Medicare will spend an average of $986, or 12.4 percent, more than it would for comparable beneficiaries in traditional fee-for-service Medicare, with total extra payments to MA plans exceeding $8.5 billion.”

As the report notes, “these overpayments put pressure on both Medicare and the federal budget, drain resources from other, potentially more productive, uses, and dilute the incentive for Medicare Advantage plan efficiency—which was one of the original reasons for including a private plan option in Medicare.”

Last Wednesday, the Associated Press “interviewed a handful of retiree delegates to the Republican convention to sample their views on health care and other issues that most concern them.” Ironically, while all of the interviewees registered their dismay for so-called government health care, all relied on government-funded Medicare, Medicaid or Veterans Health Care to cover their health care costs:

- Peggy Lambert, a member of RNC’s platform committee, is a Medicare beneficiary:

- On health care reform: “I’m not sure I know what the solution is. I just know what the problem is…It’s a terrifying experience to know that you have no coverage, and you limit your trips to the doctor, and there’s just so many things you can cut back on.”

- Frmr. Montana Gov. Tim Babcock benefits “from free prescriptions he’s entitled to as a World War II veteran”:

- On health care reform: “It’s an emotional thing that the Democrats like to build up, that everybody doesn’t have health care. I think I was about 40 years old before I realized there was such a thing as health insurance, and I got along all right.”

- John Ortega of Bettendorf, Iowa is a 67-year-old Army veteran who “receives Medicare, Medicaid and Veterans Administration insurance”:

- On health care reform: “I think small or regular business can handle that better than the government can.”

This phenomena is not uncommon. As the Wonk Room pointed out, while the 2008 Republican platform states that “Republicans support the private practice of medicine and oppose socialized medicine in the form of a government- run universal health care system,” Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) himself is a beneficiary of government administered care.

As a 72 year-old war veteran senator, McCain benefits from The Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, in which “the Government pays 72 percent of the average premium toward the total cost of the your premium,” and is potentially eligible for the government administered Medicare program and the Veterans Health Care administration, “the largest integrated health system in the United States.”

Hypocritical in their argument, some Republicans do have a single message: do as we say, not as we do.