A new issue brief from the Kaiser Family Foundation indicates that people with Medicare who choose Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have lower Medicare spending and use fewer services relative to their peers with Original Medicare, even before they enroll in MA.

While most people newly eligible for Medicare are automatically enrolled in Part B—because they are collecting Social Security retirement benefits at age 65—a growing number are not, as they are working later in life and deferring their Social Security benefits. Unlike those who are auto-enrolled in Part B, these individuals must make an active Medicare enrollment choice, taking into consideration specific timelines and existing coverage.

The Medicare Trustee’s report underscores what we already know: Medicare is strong and built to last. We urge lawmakers to pursue commonsense reforms—like reversing the tax bill’s troubling trajectory, reigning in high prescription drug prices, and eliminating Medicare Advantage overpayments—to ensure it stays that way.

Last year, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency that oversees the Medicare program, released a draft version of the annual “Medicare & You” handbook that contained several glaring inaccuracies. In a significant advocacy success, Medicare Rights and our allies convinced CMS to correct these major errors and release a final 2019 handbook that was greatly improved.

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS), the agency that oversees the Medicare program, released information about eight new payment and delivery models this week. Five of these models, collectively known as the CMS Primary Cares Initiative, will test new ways to pay Medicare primary care and other providers while the other three would explore ways for Medicare and Medicaid to better work together to provide coverage.

This week, Health Affairs released a report finding that, increasingly, middle-income seniors will have not enough money to cover the cost of housing and healthcare. The authors project that by 2029, 14.4 million people over age 75 will be “middle income.” Around 60% of these older adults will have mobility limitations and 20% of whom will have high health care needs, but their incomes will put them at risk of not being able to afford health care or housing. Unfortunately, middle-income seniors are not served by the private seniors housing industry nor by the supportive housing available to lower income individuals. This means that 54% of these individuals will not have sufficient resources to pay for the level of care provided in senor housing.

A recent Kaiser Family Foundation report highlights the dramatic increase in Medicare spending on insulin products from 2007 to 2017. When taking into account payments made by plans, beneficiaries, and the federal government, spending increased by 840% from $1.4 to $13.3 billion.

Although there are an increasing number of Part D enrollees and an increase in the percentage of enrollees who have diabetes—with one third (33%) of people with Medicare diagnosed with diabetes in 2016, up from 18% in 2000—these trends do not account for the steep growth in overall spending. Indeed, the study notes that the average total Medicare Part D spending per user on insulin products increased by 358% between 2007 and 2016 (from $862 to $3,949).

A new report from the AARP Public Policy Institute (PPI) examines trends in prices for 390 generic prescription drugs widely used by older adults. The report found that retail prices for these drugs fell by an average of 9.3% between 2016 and 2017; the general inflation rate rose by 2.1% during the same period. This follows two consecutive years of substantial generic drug price decreases; the previous two years saw prices increase.

This week, the Medicare Rights Center responded to a U.S. Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) proposed rule that

This week, the Georgetown University Health Policy Institute’s Center on Health Insurance Reforms highlighted an important new study about short-term