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This issue brief provides an overview of the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit market for 2022, with a primary focus on stand-alone drug plans. It includes national and state-level data on plan availability, premiums, benefit design, cost sharing, information about premium-free plans for low-income beneficiaries, and information about the national Part D drug plans available in 2022.
A record 3,834 Medicare Advantage plans will be available across the country as alternatives to traditional Medicare for 2022, a new KFF analysis finds. That’s an increase of 8 percent from 2021, and the largest number of plans available in more than a decade. At the same time, the number of Medicare Part D stand-alone prescription drug plans that will be offered in 2022 is decreasing by 23 percent to 766 plans, primarily the result…
In this brief, we analyze third quarter data from 2018 to 2020 to examine how insurance markets performed financially through the end of September. Average margins remained relatively high compared to the same point in recent years, suggesting many insurers remained profitable even as non-COVID-related care returned in the summer and fall.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has recently taken actions to increase transparency in Medicare Advantage, however substantial data gaps remain that limit the ability of policymakers and researchers to conduct oversight and assess the program's performance, and for Medicare beneficiaries to compare Medicare Advantage plans offered in their area.
Federal spending on bonus payments to insurance companies that offer Medicare Advantage plans will reach at least $12.8 billion in 2023, according to a new KFF analysis. That is a nearly 30% increase from 2022, and more than quadruple the spending in 2015. These data come from one of three analyses released today by KFF that examine various facets of the Medicare Advantage program, which provides health insurance coverage to nearly 31 million Americans. KFF…
Medicare Advantage enrollment is lower, but has grown more rapidly in recent years in rural areas than in metropolitan areas. In 2023, nearly 40% of eligible Medicare beneficiaries in rural areas are in Medicare Advantage. Rural Medicare beneficiaries can choose from 27 Medicare Advantage plans on average and most are enrolled in a plan that charges no additional premium.
The annual blitz of ads for Medicare Advantage plans has become a rite of fall, as health insurers, brokers and other third parties seek to court enrollees for these private plans, which are offered to the 65 million people with Medicare during the program’s open enrollment season. In advance of the open enrollment period starting on October 15, KFF reviewed more than 1,200 unique television ads that aired more than 643,000 times last year to…
With Medicare's 2015 open enrollment set to begin Oct. 15, two new analyses from the Kaiser Family Foundation find modest change in the total number of private Medicare Advantage plans available for 2015, and the fewest Part D prescription drug plans nationwide since the start of the drug benefit in 2006. As in previous years, changes in Medicare Advantage and Part D plan availability, premiums, cost-sharing and benefits could require some beneficiaries to find alternative…
Today a record three in 10 Medicare beneficiaries are enrolled in Medicare Advantage health plans, mainly HMOs and PPOs, which are paid by the government to provide Medicare benefits to their enrollees. Given the projected rise in Medicare Advantage enrollment, an important question for both consumers and policymakers is how quality and access to care compares for beneficiaries in traditional Medicare versus Medicare Advantage plans. To try to answer this question, the Kaiser Family Foundation…
This data spotlight examines at enrollment trends in Medicare Advantage plans, including Health Maintenance Organizations (HMOs), Preferred Provider Organizations (PPOs) and Private Fee-for-Service (PFFS) plans. These plans are paid by the government to provide Medicare-covered benefits to those who choose to enroll in them. As of March 2010, a record 11.1 million people – nearly one in four of all Medicare beneficiaries – were enrolled in private Medicare Advantage plans, up from 10.5 million in…
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