This is another one of those “housecleaning” posts. I noticed two items of interest in a 2010 paper by Abe Dunn, but nothing I feel like weaving into a fully-developed post.
First, here’s a nice graph of enrollment and payment rate for Medicare Advantage plans. It gives the correct impression, that enrollment is very much tied to how much the government pays plans. Higher payment translates into more plan offerings and more generous benefits, attracting greater enrollment. It’d be nice to see a graph like this extended into 2012, and I could make one. But I don’t feel like it. So this will do.
The second tidbit pertains to how much insurers are permitted to profit from the MA line of business. I’ve wondered about this for some time. According to Dunn,
Regulators […] ensure that profits on the MA business do not exceed profits on the companies commercial insurance business.
OK. Good to know.
