title: Medicare+Choice: current role and near-term prospects.
abstract: With the enactment of the Balanced Budget Act in 1997, the Medicare+Choice (M+C) program has been beset by plan withdrawals and declining enrollment. Despite this, M+C provides coverage to more than 12 percent of the Medicare population, a group that is disproportionately poor and minority. Under current law and the Medicare Payment Advisory Commission (MedPAC) M+C reform option, M+C enrollment will decline by one million over the next three years, while the new Bush administration proposal would stabilize program enrollment. If M+C were eliminated, nearly a third of its members would end up in traditional Medicare without any additional coverage, and 18 percent would enroll in Medicaid.
authors.affiliation: Department of Health Policy and Management at Emory University, Atlanta, USA.
authors.forename: Kenneth E
authors.initials: KE
authors.lastname: Thorpe
authors.forename: Adam
authors.initials: A
authors.lastname: Atherly
mesh_terms: D000206:Actuarial Analysis; D000368:Aged; D002017:Budgets / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence; D018166:Health Care Reform / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence*; D006801:Humans; D017057:Medically Uninsured; D020398:Medicare Part C / Q000331:legislation & jurisprudence / Q000706:statistics & numerical data*; D020406:Medicare Payment Advisory Commission; D011057:Politics; D014481:United States