Resource Library

Our comments are informed by our work helping callers to our National Helpline navigate and afford their care. These experiences drive us to support efforts within this rule to bring more sustainability and rationality to Medicare payment, including by establishing greater site neutrality.

Our comments are informed by our work helping beneficiaries, including callers to our National Helpline, navigate, understand, access, and afford their care. Based on this experience, we know many people with Medicare want and need to maintain deep and trusting relationships with their providers. Finding the right provider fit, spending time with that provider, and staying with that provider over the years is a priority for many people across Original Medicare and Medicare Advantage.

To make it clear what a difference MSP enrollment can have in the lives of older adults and people with disabilities, and to support advocacy efforts to expand MSP eligibility and enrollment, Medicare Rights has compiled a set of case studies from its national helpline. These cases show what obstacles beneficiaries commonly face when trying to enroll and stay enrolled in MSPs and reinforce the role the benefit plays in real people’s lives.

In recent years, insurance companies have flooded the MA market with plans that are difficult to tell apart, creating overwhelm and confusion that costs both beneficiaries and the Medicare program more than Original Medicare. This report addresses the causes and consequences of the rapid proliferation of Medicare Advantage (MA) plans in the absence of adequate consumer guidance and federal regulation.

The first part of the series explores the origins and structure of Medicare financing. Through an issue brief, infographic, and video, it outlines the various sources of funding for the three major parts of Medicare and lays out how projections and costs have fluctuated over the program’s history.