March 2013: Medicare Advantage update.

March 2012: rural Medicare Advantage enrollment update.

The cost of privatization: extra payments to Medicare Advantage Plans--2005 update.

The recently enacted Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003 (MMA) includes a broad set of provisions intended to enlarge the role of private health plans (called Medicare Advantage plans) in Medicare. This issue brief examines the payments that private plans are receiving in 2004 relative to costs in traditional fee-for-service Medicare, using data from the 2004 ...

Medicare Advantage update: benefits, enrollment, and payments after the ACA.

In 2012, the Medicare program paid private health plans $136 billion to cover about 13 million beneficiaries who received Part A and B benefits through the Medicare Advantage (MA) program rather than traditional fee-for-service (FFS) Medicare. Private plans have been a part of the program since the 1970s. Debate about the policy goals--Should they cost less per beneficiary than FFS Medicare? Sh...

Update on rural enrollment in Medicare Advantage growth continues.

Enrollment in Medicare Advantage (MA) plans in rural areas grew more than 50% in the first three quarters of 2007 and has more than tripled since the inception of the MA program at the beginning of 2006. However, rural enrollment remains well below urban enrollment as a percentage of the eligible population. This brief updates early findings from analysis of the Medicare+Choice/MA program prese...

September 2010: rural Medicare Advantage enrollment update.