Medicare Advantage Delivers Better Care And Saves Money
George C. Halvorson – HealthAffairs 1/7/2022
Halvorson responds to a two-part Health Affairs Forefront article by Richard Gilfillan and Donald Berwick, “which offered a severe critique of the Medicare Advantage (MA) program that is flawed in important ways that need to be addressed.” He points out “some of those flaws and explain[s] why MA, and the capitation system it employs, represent our best hope for health reform and high-quality, cost-effective care.”
Medicare Advantage Has An Extensive Quality Program
There Is A Finite Number Of Diagnoses For Each Person
Plans Have Both Quality Programs And Financial Rewards
Low-Income People Are Twice as Likely to Join Medicare Advantage
Medicare Advantage Members Save Over $1,600 On Care
A Path Forward
As a nation, we should build on MA and the capitation method it employs. Health care in this century should be a process, not just as an avalanche of unrelated economic events and a cascade of unrelated piece-by-piece care purchases and encounters. We should want team care and continuously improving care for everyone getting care in America. The only way to achieve that is to put a cash flow in place to pay for our care that rewards and enables a cost-effective, quality-oriented process—in short, to adopt capitation for everyone.
