Recently a stock-touting web site called Motley Fool wrote a foolish article about public Part C Medicare Advantage in general and United Healthcare insurance company in particular. It was full of foolish information. Despite what the stock touter wrote:
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The effects of the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act on public Part C Medicare Advantage were not "unintended consequences." All the effects were totally predicted by MedPAC and the Congressional Budget Office and many -- such as achieving parity in per-enrollee costs between those of us on fee for service Medicare and those on capitated Medicare -- were totally intended.
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It is not correct to say "Medicare Advantage plans provide many of the same benefits as Medicare." They provide at a minimum exactly the same benefits as Orginal Medicare plus an annual out of pocket (OOP) spending limit that Original Medicare lacks. That is the reason one buys insurance after all. The plans also often but not always provide additional benefits; I can think of none that does not reduce the $1200 hospital visit deductible and the 20% co-pay but there may be one somewhere. Most include an annual physical and drug coverage; Orginal Medicare does not.
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It is not correct to say Medicare Advantage "often have higher out of pocket limits." The Fool has it totally backwards. Original Medicare has no OOP limits. A maxium annual Medicare Advantage plan OOP limit of about $6300 is fixed by law.
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The amounts cited that the Obama administration is taking out of Medicare to pay for Obamacare is way understated. The $150 million number for Medciare Advantage cuts is both understated and represents only the cuts to Part C. There are much larger cuts being made that affect Original Medicare Parts A and B.
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The enrollment data is way out of date as is the Fool's decsription of what happened in February/March 2014, which is a little scary from someone doing investment analysis.
And the Fool might have mentiond that United Healthcare is really AARP.
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