The Medicare Advantage plans meant to curb Medicare spending is actually costing us more.

I have warned patients for years about Medicare Advantage plans which are private insurers taking your Medicare coverage and privatizing it.

Promoted as wildly popular due to the heavy marketing and bait-and-switch tactics boiler rooms are using to switch patients to these plans before they even sign up for Medicare. Talking to their experts who are commissioned salespeople results in your signing up for an inferior plan that often gives participants a free gym membership for members.

Traditional Medicare offers a low deductible and coverage in all 50 states with more robust networks of healthcare providers.   The concern is that if you switch out of traditional Medicare, it costs more to rejoin.

There is value in resisting the ads and the promotions to use their Medicare experts and taking traditional Medicare when you are finally eligible.   You can then join Medigap plans such as AARP which will cover your secondary deductibles and costs while also giving you a gym membership.

Now, we are finding out that these plans designed to privatize and save Medicare money are actually costing the system more, as reported to the Los Angeles Times.

I am also approaching Medicare age and will be thrilled to have Traditional Medicare as well as secondary insurance that will cover most of my medical bills at a significant discount to what I am now paying for my Blue Cross Omnia plan with a relatively high deductible and Tiers that make certain doctors more expensive for really no reason other than the fact that Horizon offered contractural advantages to large healthcare systems resulting in larger systems, higher healthcare premiums and an erosion of the value Horizon offered to its members.

Check out the article below

Medicare Advantage was meant to curb federal healthcare spending. It’s costing more instead

BY DON LEESTAFF WRITER MAY 9, 2023 10:02 AM PT

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WASHINGTON — Medicare Advantage, which funnels government healthcare benefits through privately run managed-care insurers, has grown so fast that within months it’s expected to be the dominant form of coverage for seniors.
That’s largely because the plans, most of them HMOs, offer lower out-of-pocket costs, plus added benefits not covered by original Medicare, such as dental and vision care and prescription drugs. Some Advantage plans even throw in gym memberships.

The one thing that Medicare Advantage has not done is curb the government’s healthcare spending, even though that was a big selling point in Washington when it was approved in the mid-1990s as Medicare Part C.

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