Page 18 THE MALDEN ADVOCATE–Friday, April 18, 2025 ~ Guest Commentary ~ Time to End the Obamacare Bureaucracy That Costs Taxpayers Billions — and Hurts Seniors By Saul Anuzis W ashington is full of wasteful programs that never seem to go away, no matter how badly they fail. But few are more deserving of elimination than the Center for Medicare & Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) -- a little-known agency that was supposed to save taxpayer dollars but has instead wasted billions Savvy Senior by Jim Miller How Seniors Can Save on Auto Insurance Dear Savvy Senior, Can you offer any tips to help seniors save on their auto insurance? I recently turned 70 and got hit with a 25 percent premium increase on my car insurance and am looking for ways to save. Older Driver Dear Driver, As auto insurance rates across the country continue to rise for all drivers, seniors can face an even bigger price hike, once they reach their 70s and their driving skills begin to decline. Fortunately, there are ways you can reduce your premiums. To find out what discounts may be available to you, contact your auto insurer and inquire about these options. Increase your deductible: Paying a higher deductible could save you big on premiums. For example, raising your deductible from $500 to $1,000 can bring your annual premiums down by 15 to 20 percent, on average. Adjust your coverage: If you’re driving an older vehicle, you may want to consider dropping collision and/or comprehensive coverage if your premium is more than 10 percent of the car’s value. Collision insurance covers damage to your car if you’re involved in a crash (or if you’re the victim of a hit-and-run) and comprehensive covers damage caused by acts of nature (such as storm damage), vandalism, theft or fire. But if you’re scaling back to liability coverage, make sure you have enough to pay for damages out of pocket if you’re in an accident or your car sustains damage due to weather, theft or another non-collision event. Take a defensive driving course: Some insurance companies offer defensive driving discounts – between 5 and 15 percent – to drivers who take a refresher course to brush up on their safety skills. Organizations such as AARP (aarpdriversafety.org), AAA (aaa.com/stop) and The National Safety Council (nsc.org) provide these classes, for around $20 to $30 and they can be taken online. Report your milage: Most insurers offer discounts to customers who drive limited miles each year, which is usually beneficial to retirees who drive less because they don’t commute to work every day. These discounts usually kick in when your annual milage drops below 7,500 or 10,000 depending on your provider. Bundle policies: If your auto insurance policy is issued by a different company from the one insuring your home, call each insurer and ask if bundling the policies would be cheaper. Sign up for driver monitoring: Some insurers offer discounts based on how and when you use your car. They will monitor things like your acceleration, braking habits, driving speeds and phone use, via smartphone app or a device that plugs into your car’s diagnostic port. Drivers can be rewarded anywhere from 10 to 30 percent for safe driving. In addition, many insurance providers also offer discounts to drivers who do not have any violations or accidents for three or more years. Ask about membership discounts: Many insurers offer discounts through professional associations, workers’ unions, large employers or membership organizations such as AAA, NARFE, AARP, etc. You could even qualify for savings based on the college you attended or the fraternity or sorority you belonged to decades ago. Improve your credit: You may be able to lower your car insurance premium by paying your bills on time and reducing the amount of debt you carry. Insurers look at how their customers manage credit to get an idea of risk and to price policies. Better rates are given to those with good credit scores, typically 700 or above. Comparison shop: To find out if your current premium is competitive with other insurers, shop around through insurance marketplace websites like TheZebra.com, Insurify.com, Lemonade.com or Policygenius.com. Or use an independent agent (see trustedchoice.com/agent) to help you compare. Send your senior questions to: Savvy Senior, P.O. Box 5443, Norman, OK 73070, or visit SavvySenior.org. Jim Miller is a contributor to the NBC Today show and author of “The Savvy Senior” book. while making healthcare worse for seniors. CMMI was created in 2010 under Obamacare to test new ways to lower Medicare and Medicaid costs while improving care. The idea sounded good on paper, and the Congressional Budget Office (CBO) once projected it would save taxpayers $34 billion over ten years. Instead, it has cost taxpayers around $9 billion, and the CBO now says it will cost another $1.3 billion over the next decade. It's a ripe target for Donald Trump and Elon Musk's mission to gut government waste. The duo should call on Congress to shut it down. Over the past 14 years, CMMI has run dozens of "experiments" testing different ways for Medicare and Medicaid to pay for care. The results have been failure after failure. Of the 49 payment models it tested from 2011-2020, only six saved any money -- and even those savings were tiny. Most of CMMI's projects have actually made healthcare more expensive and more complicated for seniors. One of the worst examples is the Medicare Advantage Value-Based Insurance Design (VBID) Model. It was supposed to make Medicare Advantage plans more efficient. Instead, it drained $4.5 billion from the Medicare Trust Fund without meaningfully improving patient care. After years of wasted money, the Biden administration finally scrapped it. CMMI has also turned into a boondoggle for government contractors, spending at least $7.9 billion on outside consultants and vendors with little to show for it. One of CMMI's biggest failures, the Comprehensive Primary Care Plus Model, spent $400 million on outside contractors only to drive up Medicare costs by $2.4 billion. That's money that could have gone toward lowering Medicare premiums or, even better, back to taxpayers. But the problem isn't just wasted money. CMMI has too much power. Unlike other Medicare programs, it doesn't need approval from Congress to make big changes. That means unelected government bureaucrats -- who never have to answer to voters -- get to decide how much doctors are paid and what kinds of treatments seniors can access. Many of CMMI's experiments have buried doctors in red tape, making it harder for them to focus on their patients. Patient advocates have warned that some projects have restricted access to critical treatments, particularly for people with serious illnesses like cancer and autoimmune diseases. It gets worse. Under the Biden administration, the agency embedded progressive social justice metrics into its decision-making process, seemingly prioritizing equity and DEI goals over Medicare's core mission. This is exactly what happens when government agencies get too much power and too little oversight. The good news is that Republicans in Congress can get rid of the bureaucratic "experiment" that's causing all this havoc. Because CMMI was created under Obamacare, its authority is not permanent. Congress can defund it entirely, taking power away from unelected bureaucrats and putting Medicare and Medicaid decisions back in the hands of lawmakers who answer to voters. If lawmakers won't act on their own, Elon Musk and the DOGE team should shine a spotlight on CMMI and put pressure on Congress to take action. CMMI's architects promised better care, lower costs, and greater efficiency. Instead, Americans got wasteful spending, fewer choices, and declining quality. It's time for the new administration to end this disaster before it does even more harm. Saul Anuzis is president of 60 Plus, the American Association of Senior Citizens. This piece originally ran in the Boston Herald.
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