Medicare Advantage is a fundamentally corrupt, parasitic institution. We must fully abolish the industry of private health insurance—severing the parasite from its host.
Thank you for a thought-provoking article -- on the concept of the Money Model of Disability, and much more.
About Medicare Advantage, I totally agree -- and have from their start -- that they are a rip-off of members/patients, taxpayers, and caregivers.
But I need to question one astonishing point, the assertion that a Kaiser study "showed that the average Medicare Advantage plan “spent more than twice the amount of money on advertising as it did on care.”
This claim seemed implausible, as it would have to mean both unbelievably nonstop saturation advertising AND stunningly unprecedented lows in so-called "medical loss ratios" (which, may I add parenthetically, ought to be called "care shares").
Going to the KFF report on Medicare Advantage marketing that you link to, I saw this quite different finding, which simply compares two different categories of advertising:
"Insurers are estimated to have spent more than twice the amount for Medicare Advantage plan ads than for Medicare Prescription Drug Plan ads ($30.1 million vs. $13.7 million) — based on ads placed nationally and in the three study markets."
The other comments in that report on levels of advertising spending don't seem relevant, so I wonder... Perhaps that was the wrong link and there is something on this issue in a different KFF analysis? Or perhaps there was a slip in transcribing / tracking this finding? I hope you can check.
Thanks for a great, great article. I will listen to any and all podcasts. At the moment I have two brief comments:
- You can get a Medicare Advantage plan in some states with very broad coverage. My own Blue Cross Advantage plan here in MN has 100% of hospitals and 96% of doctors enrolled.
- You are correct that insurers look to Medicare Advantage for their profits. In the employer market, all the large companies with good risks are self-funded. The small business market has always been of uncertain profitability.
Thank you for a thought-provoking article -- on the concept of the Money Model of Disability, and much more.
About Medicare Advantage, I totally agree -- and have from their start -- that they are a rip-off of members/patients, taxpayers, and caregivers.
But I need to question one astonishing point, the assertion that a Kaiser study "showed that the average Medicare Advantage plan “spent more than twice the amount of money on advertising as it did on care.”
This claim seemed implausible, as it would have to mean both unbelievably nonstop saturation advertising AND stunningly unprecedented lows in so-called "medical loss ratios" (which, may I add parenthetically, ought to be called "care shares").
Going to the KFF report on Medicare Advantage marketing that you link to, I saw this quite different finding, which simply compares two different categories of advertising:
https://www.kff.org/wp-content/uploads/2013/01/7805.pdf
"Insurers are estimated to have spent more than twice the amount for Medicare Advantage plan ads than for Medicare Prescription Drug Plan ads ($30.1 million vs. $13.7 million) — based on ads placed nationally and in the three study markets."
The other comments in that report on levels of advertising spending don't seem relevant, so I wonder... Perhaps that was the wrong link and there is something on this issue in a different KFF analysis? Or perhaps there was a slip in transcribing / tracking this finding? I hope you can check.
Thanks again for your valuable work --
In solidarity,
Debbie
Deborah Socolar, MPH
Thanks for a great, great article. I will listen to any and all podcasts. At the moment I have two brief comments:
- You can get a Medicare Advantage plan in some states with very broad coverage. My own Blue Cross Advantage plan here in MN has 100% of hospitals and 96% of doctors enrolled.
- You are correct that insurers look to Medicare Advantage for their profits. In the employer market, all the large companies with good risks are self-funded. The small business market has always been of uncertain profitability.
Feckless and corrupt Democrats in Congress have no idea or don't care this happens.
It's over, kids. It's over.