Rep. Schweikert Gives Dems Ammo To Attack GOP On Medicare

With friends like these, who needs enemies? That’s perhaps the most charitable way to describe a report released by the Joint Economic Committee regarding Medicare Advantage last week. 

Lest readers make the same mistake that multiple reporters did last week, the “joint” in the JEC’s name means the committee is bicameral — i.e., composed of members of the House and Senate — not bipartisan. Last week’s report was released solely by JEC’s Republican staff, supervised by Rep. David Schweikert, R-Ariz., a fact that makes it all the more inexplicable.

As a former JEC staffer myself, I am still stunned that the committee’s Republican staff not only put out a paper that endorsed highly questionable policy but also gave Democrats ammunition to attack Republicans in the process of doing so. “Stupid” isn’t too harsh a word for it; Rahm Emanuel might even use more colorful language. 

The Issue

The report analyzed the extent to which private Medicare Advantage plans that provide benefits to seniors receive greater payments than traditional Medicare. On the substance, some Medicare Advantage insurers certainly do abuse the system. 

For instance, a 2024 Wall Street Journal investigation examined the ways in which Medicare Advantage insurers added diagnoses to patients’ charts — in some cases without even treating patients for the conditions in question — so they could obtain additional payments from Medicare for said conditions. I wrote on another Journal investigation that found Medicare Advantage insurers received billions to “cover” senior citizens who obtain most, and in some cases all, of their care from the Department of Veterans Affairs rather than Medicare. 

On a macro level, Schweikert and the JEC staff are right to raise the question of whether Medicare Advantage plans are overpaid by taxpayers. But rather than making the broader point and leaving it at that, the JEC analysis endorsed suboptimal policy. Worse yet, it encouraged political attacks on other Republicans.

Bad Policy

First, the JEC report accepts as gospel the methodology used by the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) to determine the amount of the alleged overpayments, giving the commission a level of credence it does not deserve. For the uninitiated, MedPAC comprises commissioners appointed by the Government Accountability Office, most of whom come from various fields and professorships within health care. In other words, a group of (mostly) big-government technocratic commissioners who oversee a big-government technocratic staff. Their analysis proves this time and again.

For instance, MedPAC never points out that seniors aren’t enrolled in the lowest-cost or most efficient plan in their area; they are automatically enrolled into the government-run plan. That gives traditional Medicare a competitive advantage as seniors’ default option, and it means Medicare Advantage plans have less of an efficiency incentive because they cannot undercut traditional Medicare on price. 

MedPAC claims it “supports payment policies that do not unduly favor” Medicare Advantage or traditional Medicare and that it wants “meaningful and transparent competition.” But its actions in consistently ignoring traditional Medicare’s in-built bias as seniors’ default option suggest the opposite.

Rather than pointing out traditional Medicare’s bias — a topic about which MedPAC remains willfully ignorant — and suggesting reforms to increase competition and efficiency between Medicare Advantage and traditional Medicare, the JEC report instead just endorsed MedPAC’s “solution” of arbitrarily reducing MA plan payments to traditional Medicare rates. That may lower spending, but it isn’t the most market-oriented or conservative policy.

Worse Politics

As bad as the JEC report’s policy was, the politics were even worse. Its breakdown of the alleged overpayments by congressional district represented an act of political warfare against fellow Republicans. That breakdown amounted to an open invitation to the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee — not to mention every Democrat candidate in the country — to put out press releases and TV ads attacking Republicans for overcharging seniors by $X million in their district. 

To use a pretty close analogy, how do you think Schweikert would react if Sen. Rand Paul or Rep. Thomas Massie, both Kentucky Republicans critical of the American military action in Iran, decided to publish estimates of how much more citizens in Schweikert’s district are paying in higher gas prices because of that conflict? That’s effectively what this JEC report did. It gave Democrats a roadmap to attack other Republicans. 

The report is so politically inept that the White House should weigh in. For those who don’t closely follow Arizona politics, Schweikert is vacating his congressional seat this year to run for governor. While President Trump has already endorsed Rep. Andy Biggs, R-Ariz., and not Schweikert, in the Republican primary, White House aides should use this report as motivation for Trump to do more on Biggs’ behalf. In opening Republicans up to a line of political attack on Medicare, Schweikert just made the task of Republicans retaining control of Congress (Trump’s prime political objective) more difficult.

Poor Judgment

On Thursday, I emailed Schweikert’s chief of staff to express my concerns that the JEC report was both “unwise and unhelpful.” I received neither an acknowledgement nor a substantive reply to my criticisms.

If papers like the JEC report are evidence of the political acumen Schweikert claims he will use as Arizona’s governor, then voters should vote for Biggs in the Republican primary on July 21. Because, as I noted at the start, with “friends” like Schweikert, conservatives don’t need enemies.