The "health" that drives private sector health insurance is the health of the corporate bottom line. As understand it, the "advantage" of Medicare Advantage was supposed to be lower costs for better benefits that only the free market could promise. How's that working out?
"UnitedHealthcare said in its second quarter earnings call that it plans to drop Medicare Advantage plans that currently serve over 600,000 users, becoming the latest health insurer to announce a scaling back of this magnitude.
"We are seeing higher-than-expected medical cost increases, particularly in outpatient care," Tim Noel, UnitedHealthcare CEO, said on the earnings call. "The American health system's long-standing cost problem is accelerating.
"As enrollment in these plans, which are administered by private insurance companies, has ballooned, costs for providers have taken off. In response, Medicare Advantage (MA) plans have been making cuts to some benefits and even increasing deductibles."
It turns out that people who have insurance sometimes use it. So the free market solution is cut and run.
"Nearly every Medicare Advantage insurer has either exited the business, such as Cigna, or is retrenching," said Philip Moeller, a Medicare and Social Security expert. "UnitedHealthcare is the largest, and its reappraisal could have the biggest impact."
Medicare Advantage plans are scaling back or disappearing