Officials Looking To Cut Federal Spending Eye Medigap Policies
By Susan Jaffe KAISER HEALTH NEWS in collaboration with 
Nov. 21, 2011
Margaret Fisher is among the millions of seniors with private, supplemental health insurance that takes care of most of the medical bills Medicare doesn’t cover. If she has a health crisis, she reasons, it won’t become a financial crisis, too.
But officials looking for ways to cut the federal deficit are suggesting that these Medigap policies help explain why the government’s Medicare bill is rising so fast. If these private policies were less generous, they figure, seniors might reduce their trips to the doctor or find cheaper care, which in turn would save the government money.Fisher, 86, a cancer survivor from Gaithersburg who has had two hip replacements, says that strategy could backfire… [Continued on Kaiser Health News and in The Washington Post]