The Kaiser Family Foundation recently released an update on the Medicare Advantage (MA) plan market in 2015. According to the report, enrollment in MA plans continues to increase despite concerns that adjustments in payments to MA plans enacted by the Affordable Care Act (ACA) would stifle enrollment. These payment adjustments were put in place to reduce overpayments to MA plans and brings costs in-line with Traditional Medicare. Since the ACA passed in 2010, MA enrollment has increased by 5.6 million–a 50 percent increase.
Additionally, there are 16.8 million people enrolled in MA plans this year, which is about 31 percent of the Medicare population. Between 2014 and 2015, MA enrollment grew by over one million people (7 percent), continuing the trend of rapid growth of enrollment since the introduction of the Part D prescription drug benefit in 2006.
Ultimately, according to the report, the MA marketplace is healthy.