Health Affairs January 25, 2018
As policy makers at the state and federal level continue to search for viable health policy solutions, it’s more critical now than ever to leverage concepts that have worked and reimagine those that have not. In this regard, there is a great deal to learn from the success of Medicare Advantage (MA), Medicare’s large and growing system of competing private health plans. Federally funded but privately administered, MA plans leverage the business-rich experience and care management capabilities of commercial payers and have demonstrated, to a large degree, the special advantages of the private-sector market response to patient wants and needs.
For more than 30 years, US policy makers have been trying to legislate solutions to fix broken health care markets....