Medicare Advantage Continues To Benefit Seniors — for Now

The part of Medicare that provides seniors consumer choice and competition keeps showing real gains for Medicare beneficiaries.

• Federal authorities have reported that the Medicare Advantage program has furthered its success in the past year.
• USA Today, The Hill and other news outlets reported on the Health and Human Services announcement.
• Medicare Advantage enables patients to pick among private health plan options as their Medicare coverage.  This provides beyond conventional Medicare’s one-size-fits-all approach.
• Since its inception, seniors have increasingly flocked to Medicare Advantage.  But the 2010 health reform law threatens to reverse this program’s popularity in the near future.

The HHS announcement again confirms that market-based models really work.  Medicare Advantage proves the point.

• The MA program’s good news — for now — is that average MA plan premiums have fallen 7 percent from a year ago.  Meanwhile, MA enrollment has risen 10 percent during that time period.
• More seniors have voluntarily opted for Medicare Advantage’s private insurance coverage.  Giving these consumers wider choice and greater competition has led to high satisfaction, lower cost and more covered lives.
• HHS reported that MA premiums have dropped 16 percent and enrollment has risen 17 percent since 2010.
• Seniors have 26 private health plan options to choose from, on average, through Medicare Advantage.  These private plans integrate doctor and hospital care, prescription coverage and preventive care benefits.
• Since MA came about in the 2003 Medicare Modernization Act, program costs have typically been less than the government had predicted.

The 2010 health law could very well spell trouble for seniors in MA plans.  Health reform built in drastic cuts to Medicare Advantage that have yet to take effect.

• Health plans that participate in Medicare Advantage have worked hard to offer attractive, affordable coverage packages.  But federal action is making deep cuts that will undermine the MA program.
• In 2015, cuts to MA funding start up.  That law slashes $200 billion from MA alone.
• The Congressional Budget Office has predicted stark effects from that degree of cutting.  MA enrollment will drop from 11.7 million seniors in 2011 to 7.5 million in 2018 — a decrease of more than a third of all participants.
• CBO also said MA premiums will rise on account of the cuts.

Forcing seniors out of a popular Medicare option makes no sense.  It’s wrong to disrupt the elderly’s existing health coverage, to diminish the quality and affordability of their coverage, and to push them back into one-size-fits-all Medicare.  While the MA program is still making gains, its losses due to unnecessarily deep cuts will soon begin.  Medicare needs more market reforms, not fewer.