The Issues

As a diverse community of Ally organizations and beneficiaries, Better Medicare Alliance has a keen focus on addressing the health and racial and ethnic disparities that persist across the health care spectrum, as well as the social and environmental factors that negatively impact beneficiary health. Medicare Advantage is a leader in addressing social determinants of health to reduce disparities and advance health equity by leveraging benefit design and the unique tools at the foundation of Medicare Advantage.

During the early months of the COVID-19 pandemic, the health care system rapidly shifted its focus and direction to tend to the millions of Americans impacted by the virus, especially those most at-risk like seniors and people with disabilities. Medicare Advantage leveraged its model and tools available to meet the needs of and keep beneficiaries safe during the uncertain times. Lessons learned and best practices developed during this time should not be forgotten and instead, be integrated into care delivery today and in the future.

Medicare Advantage is built on a value-based system in which health plans receive a fixed, monthly payment for each beneficiary’s care and are tasked with using those dollars efficiently and effectively to improve and deliver positive health outcomes. Value-based care incentivizes high-quality, high-value, coordinated, and innovative care for the 31 million beneficiaries who trust Medicare Advantage with their health care.

Better Medicare Alliance leads the charge for solutions to streamline and modernize the Medicare enrollment process to ensure that all beneficiaries know their options and can be an active chooser in their health coverage. Already, our advocacy efforts led to additional language in the annual “Medicare & You” handbook that includes easy-to-read, upfront comparisons of Medicare Advantage and FFS Medicare and supported the recent reintroduction of the multilanguage insert in certain CMS materials to inform beneficiaries of available translation services.

Medicare Advantage relies on accurate, adequate, and stable policies to support: full-risk and population-based payment, the collection of data necessary for accurate payment and identifying beneficiary health status, maintaining quality improvement programs, and supporting care management essential to high-value, integrated care.

Keeping costs low for both the federal government and beneficiaries is at the core of Better Medicare Alliance’s mission and is among the many reasons why more than 31 million Americans trust Medicare Advantage with their health coverage today. Medicare Advantage not only delivers better outcomes, but data shows Medicare Advantage beneficiaries report less in total annual health expenditures than their FFS Medicare counterparts. Moreover, Medicare Advantage delivers more in value to the federal government at no extra cost.