{"id":89322,"date":"2025-10-21T18:23:07","date_gmt":"2025-10-21T18:23:07","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/89322\/"},"modified":"2025-10-21T18:23:07","modified_gmt":"2025-10-21T18:23:07","slug":"why-seniors-are-scrambling-for-medicare-health-plan-options-in-minnesota","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/89322\/","title":{"rendered":"Why seniors are scrambling for Medicare health plan options in Minnesota"},"content":{"rendered":"<p class=\"rt-Text\">In Minnesota, the second-largest Medicare Advantage health insurer \u2014 Minneapolis-based UCare \u2014 announced it was <a href=\"https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/ucare-medicare-advantage\/601467711\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/ucare-medicare-advantage\/601467711\">exiting the market for 2026<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rt-Text\">In recent years, UCare apparently priced its products too low for escalating cost trends and <a href=\"https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/ucare-implements-turnaround-strategy-cant-rule-out-layoffs-following-dollar504m-operating-loss\/601319969\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/ucare-implements-turnaround-strategy-cant-rule-out-layoffs-following-dollar504m-operating-loss\/601319969\">lost big money<\/a> as a result.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rt-Text\">Across the country, Medicare Advantage insurers are seeing federal funding reductions due in part to the government <a href=\"https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/insurance-industry-stranglehold-blamed-for-blocking-medicare-advantage-reform\/601456992\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/insurance-industry-stranglehold-blamed-for-blocking-medicare-advantage-reform\/601456992\">tightening up<\/a> the extra payments insurers receive for taking on patients with bigger health problems.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rt-Text\">Critics say insurers have <a href=\"https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/why-unitedhealths-medicare-advantage-program-is-under-attack\/601456535\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" title=\"https:\/\/www.startribune.com\/why-unitedhealths-medicare-advantage-program-is-under-attack\/601456535\">gamed the system<\/a> to wrongly drive up revenue through these payments, while insurers insist they\u2019ve done nothing wrong and use the funds to provide benefits for seniors. Medicare responded by making it harder to obtain the payments.<\/p>\n<p class=\"rt-Text\">\u201cYou\u2019re seeing benefit reductions across the industry and, importantly, you\u2019re seeing a reduction in choice for consumers,\u201d Bobby Hunter, UnitedHealthcare\u2019s chief executive of government programs, said during a call with reporters last month. \u201cThose are byproducts of the cuts that have been made to the program.\u201d<\/p>\n<p class=\"rt-Text\">Insurers say their prices and options also have been shaped by changes over the past two years that have made Part D drug coverage more generous for seniors.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"In Minnesota, the second-largest Medicare Advantage health insurer \u2014 Minneapolis-based UCare \u2014 announced it was exiting the market&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":89323,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[34],"tags":[163,521,85,46],"class_list":["post-89322","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-healthcare","tag-health","tag-healthcare","tag-il","tag-israel"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89322","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=89322"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/89322\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/89323"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=89322"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=89322"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=89322"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}