Medicare Advantage under Health Care Reform

In my last posting I talked about the fact that the new Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act will significantly reduce payments to Medicare Advantage plans (Part C) over the next several years. And fewer beneficiaries will use this approach to getting their Medicare benefits. A recent (June 11) Wall Street Journal editorial was entitled “Farewell, Medicare Advantage,” and I even heard someone on the radio say that Medicare Advantage will disappear. Again, I don’t think that will happen; nor do we need to say “”Farewell” to Medicare Advantage. However, the editorial did point me to the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) website, where its actuary has posted his estimates of what will happen to Medicare Advantage, and these estimates are significantly more pessimistic than the Congressional Budget Office numbers I used in that blog posting. The CMS actuary believes that only about seven and a half million beneficiaries will be in this option by 2017, half of what he estimated would have been the case if the Act had not passed. So again, it’s NOT going to disappear or go away, contrary to what some may be saying, but it does certainly appear that many beneficiaries will, in the years ahead, no longer find that Medicare Advantage is the substantial help to them that this part of the Medicare program has been to so many.