The Cost of Privatization: Extra Payments to Medicare Advantage Plans?Updated & Revised

November 2006 The Cost of Privatization: Extra Payments to Medicare Advantage Plans: Updated & Revised The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 sharply increased payments to private Medicare Advantage plans. As a result, every plan in every county in the nation was paid more in 2005 than its enrollees would have been expected to cost if they had been enrolled in traditional fee-for-service Medicare. The authors calculate that payments to Medicare Advantage plans averaged 12.4 percent more than costs in traditional Medicare during 2005: a total of more than $5.2 billion, or $922 for each of the . . .