By Amina Niasse<\/p>\n
Feb 18 (Reuters) – Nearly 3 million people with Medicare Advantage plans – or about 10% of all enrollees in the privately-managed program – had to \u200cfind alternative coverage in 2026, as health insurers exited markets and scaled back \u200cplan options, according to a study published in a medical journal on Wednesday.<\/p>\n
Members in rural areas experienced plan \u200bdisruptions at double the rate of those in urban areas, the JAMA study found, raising concerns about losing access to healthcare providers, specialty care and long-term treatments, Hannah James, policy researcher at think tank RAND Corporation, wrote in an editorial accompanying the study.<\/p>\n
In seven states, more \u200cthan 40% of Medicare Advantage \u2060enrollees were left scrambling as plans exited, including 92% of enrollees in Vermont. The others were Idaho, Wyoming, North Dakota, South Dakota, Maryland, \u2060and New Hampshire.<\/p>\n
The government’s Medicare health program provides benefits to about 60 million people aged 65 and older or who have disabilities. About half of them enroll in Medicare Advantage plans run \u200bby major \u200bhealth insurance companies while the other half receive \u200bbenefits from traditional government-run Medicare.<\/p>\n
In 2025, \u200chealth insurance companies reported shortfalls in plans after costs rose and government reimbursement declined and said they would pull out of or shift markets in 2026.<\/p>\n
UNITEDHEALTHCARE, AETNA, ELEVANCE ALL SHIFT<\/p>\n
Enrollees of smaller insurance carriers represented half of those experiencing disruptions, the study found.<\/p>\n
UnitedHealthcare, part of UnitedHealth Group accounted for nearly 14% of disruptions, followed by CVS Health’s Aetna, and \u200cElevance at 8.65% and about 8%, respectively.<\/p>\n
Plans that \u200bhad provided consumers with greater choice in providers were \u200bmost frequently terminated, the study also \u200bfound.<\/p>\n
The current model, in which the government pays insurers on a \u200cpre-negotiated basis incentivizes insurers to attract more \u200bprofitable patients, James said \u200bin her editorial.<\/p>\n
“Policymakers should consider whether the current program design adequately aligns plan incentives with beneficiary needs,” James said.<\/p>\n
In 2025, UnitedHealthcare accounted for nearly a third of \u200ball Medicare Advantage plans, \u200caccording to health policy firm KFF. Humana, CVS Health and Elevance accounted for \u200b17%, 12%, and 7% of plans, respectively.<\/p>\n
(Reporting by Amina Niasse in New York; \u200bEditing by Caroline Humer and Bill Berkrot)<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"By Amina Niasse Feb 18 (Reuters) – Nearly 3 million people with Medicare Advantage plans – or about…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":297956,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[150753,150752,163,39883,521,85,46,150754,6943],"class_list":{"0":"post-297955","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-healthcare","8":"tag-enrollees","9":"tag-hannah-james","10":"tag-health","11":"tag-health-insurers","12":"tag-healthcare","13":"tag-il","14":"tag-israel","15":"tag-jama-study","16":"tag-medicare-advantage"},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297955","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=297955"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/297955\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/297956"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=297955"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=297955"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=297955"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}