Medicare Advantage Dangers

Medicare Advantage plans are private health insurance plans available to people who are eligible for Medicare. While the name sounds positive, Medicare Advantage plans are privatizing Medicare (sending dollars that could be used for care to investor’s bank accounts), preventing seniors who need care from getting it and taking us down a wrong path.

Take Action:

Spread the word that Medicare Advantage plans are a scam that is hurting seniors and our future Medicare for All healthcare system! Tell your friends and family and write letters to the editor in your local paper about it. Tell your member of Congress that Medicare Advantage plans are ripping seniors and the federal government off. See below for more specifics.

Click here to write a letter to the editor.

Click here to contact your member of Congress.

Privatizing Medicare, our public insurance: Due to aggressive marketing of the plans, Medicare Advantage is becoming a bigger share of the Medicare system, now comprising 34% of Medicare enrollees. Medicare Advantage plans receive more money from the government per enrollee than original Medicare and they cover a healthier population than original Medicare. With its high overhead and profits, Medicare Advantage wastes dollars that could be used for health care.

Preventing seniors from receiving health care: Medicare Advantage plans behave like other private health insurance plans – they restrict where seniors can receive care and they deny payment for services, even when they are included in the plan. Trudy Lieberman describes this in detail in “How to choose a Medicare plan: Is no monthly premium really better?” And Ed Weisbart describes how Advantage plans use other practices to enhance their profits in “Three ways to cut – and improve – Medicare.”

Sending us down the wrong path: As we advocate for a National Improved Medicare for All, a universal, publicly-financed, public health insurance, private health insurers are looking for ways to continue to profit from the healthcare system. They are pressuring lawmakers to include them in the new system by opening up the current Medicare system to more people. We must be clear that Medicare Advantage plans have no place in our National Improved Medicare for All system. Read Diane Archer’s “Ten ways Medicare Advantage plans differ from traditional Medicare” and listen to her speak about it here.

Here are the ten reasons to oppose Medicare Advantage:

1. Restricted choice: Medicare Advantage plans limit the doctors and hospitals enrollees can use and generally have little incentive to include providers who deliver value in their networks. They generally do not compete with one another to deliver value and meet the needs of Americans who need costly care. For this reason, sicker people are more likely to disenroll from them.
2. Meaningless choice: Medicare Advantage plans do not offer people information that would allow them to understand what they will pay out of pocket when they need costly care and which doctors and hospitals they will be able to use.
3. Inequitable: Medicare Advantage plans shift costs to people most needing care; high deductibles, copays and an out-of-pocket cap of nearly $7,000 each year undermine access and ration people’s care based on their ability to pay.
4. Unreliable coverage: Medicare Advantage plans cannot offer reliable coverage or continuity of care as they are constantly changing the products and services they offer, the providers in their network, as well as their enrollees’ cost-sharing obligations. And, at times, they are pulling out of the market altogether.
5. Unsustainable: Medicare Advantage plans cannot rein in costs or slow down the rate of growth in health care spending.
6. Inefficient: Medicare Advantage plans drive up costs through the time, money and personnel they require for billing and other insurance-related administrative activities.
7. Profit-driven: With a few notable exceptions such as Kaiser, Intermountain and Geisinger, Medicare Advantage plans are obligated to put shareholders first, with incentives to maximize profits and delay and deny medically necessary care.
8. No innovation for the public good: Medicare Advantage plans have no incentive to innovate for the public good or disclose information about medical protocols, devices and other treatments that would benefit the public at large. What they learn about what’s working and not working in our health care system, they tend to keep to themselves.
9. Unaccountable: Medicare Advantage plans treat much of their operations as proprietary, preventing needed oversight and public understanding of areas where they are failing consumers.
10. Unethical: Medicare Advantage plans may engage in fraudulent and illegal behavior. The federal government cannot always oversee them effectively and hold them accountable for inappropriate behavior, let alone illegal activities.