Medicare Advantage Scrutiny Continues - Part 4 (another straw in the wind)

Note: Privatized Medicare Advantage plans now cover over half of all Medicare participants. Many UC retirees have chosen the Medicare Advantage plan offered by UC, because it is less expensive than the traditional Medicare supplement plans. Recently, the feds seem to have become aware of evidence that Medicare has been overpaying commercial insurance companies for providing these plans and a crackdown on such payments has begun. That may account for the development reported below. Absent the de facto subsidy for the plans from the overpayments, commercial insurance companies may either raise their costs and/or begin to pull out of the market.

From Newsweek: More than 500,000 Americans are scheduled to lose their Medicare Advantage plans now that major insurer Humana is leaving 13 markets across the country. The company's Chief Financial Officer Susan Diamond made the announcement during a Wells Fargo Healthcare Conference this month, saying roughly 560,000 members would need to find a new plan. That impacts roughly 10 percent of its Medicare Advantage participants...

Full story at https://www.newsweek.com/more-500000-americans-set-lose-their-medicare-advantage-plans-1952164.