Medicare Facts and Faces: Why Consumers Disenroll from Medicare Private Health Plans
- Positions and Publications
Medicare Rights Center hotline counselors provided assistance to over 15,000 people with Medicare, their caregivers and health care professionals from all over the country last year. The cases that our clients present to us contain every type of consumer problem. People call us with questions about initial enrollment in Medicare, pleas for help obtaining coverage of a particular medication or other treatment and requests for guidance in sorting out the coverage options under Medicare. Each consumer case is entered into a database that includes demographic information about the client and substantive information about his or her particular case. These case records help Medicare Rights develop policy proposals to address the consumer problems frequently presented or illuminated by these cases. The data from these cases can also serve to identify trends impacting Medicare consumers and point out the need for additional research or policy remedies. This is the first in a series of reports based on data from our casework.
Recent Resources
Any changes to the Medicare program must aim for healthier people, better care, and smarter spending—not paying more for less. As policymakers debate the future of health care, we will provide our insights here.
Thinking ahead to Medicare's future, it’s important to modernize benefits and pursue changes that improve how people with Medicare navigate their coverage on a daily basis. Here are our evolving 30 policy goals for Medicare’s future.
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