Medicare vs. Medicare Advantage: Ill Health Often Leads to Plan Switch

Medicare Advantage plans are attracting seniors with their appealing price tags and promise of comprehensive health coverage in one convenient package. But are these plans actually a disadvantage for people with serious health problems?

That's the question raised by a string of recent studies. A 2017 review by the U.S. Government Accountability Office, for example, found that in some Advantage plans, enrollees in poor health were substantially more likely to dump the plan than those in good health. A recent study by Brown University researchers found that Medicare Advantage enrollees are more likely to enter lower-quality nursing homes compared with people on original Medicare. Earlier studies have also found that people using high-cost services such as nursing-home care disproportionately switch from Medicare Advantage to original Medicare.

Medicare Advantage "tends to work for people when they are