“How CBO Analyzes the Costs of Proposals for Single-Payer Health Care Systems That Are Based on Medicare’s Fee-for-Service Program” Dec. 2020

CBO started with a study that found that Medicare beneficiaries who enrolled in private managed care plans (known as Medicare Advantage, or MA) used either an estimated 9 percent or an estimated 25 percent less medical care than beneficiaries with similar characteristics participating in the Medicare FFS program, depending on the modeling approach used. 

CBO estimated that MA enrollees would have 10 percent greater use of medical services if they were moved into Medicare FFS with no additional changes in cost sharing or coverage.