09:5809:58, 25 December 2019diffhist+226
Medicare Advantage
begin to add more detail on the increasing number of non-medical services, such as assistance for daily living, covered under an increasing number of Medicare Advantage plans. Also as to a request for sources running as a banner, please note last paragraph of first section (everything in here can be found on cms dot gov or hhs dot gov
13:2213:22, 2 November 2019diffhist−11
Medicare (United States)
Just a few typos and similar things changed so that I could make the following comment: almost all <ref> notations in this entire article are ancient (that does not make them wrong in ALL cases) or secondary sources. Almost all references, even the ancient but correct ones, could be changed to "Medicare and You, 2020," issued in September 2019, or to the Annual Medicare Trustees Report, most recently issued for CY 2018, in April 2019
18 October 2019
11:3611:36, 18 October 2019diffhist−616
Medicare Advantage
A footnote 1 added was not a reference to anything but pure unadulterated BS: MA plans do NOT provide more in benefits than the cost of the plan. Most MA sponsors are NOT even insurance companies. There is NO policy; it is a plan. The "profits" for administering MA (most are non profit) are the same as for administering Original Medicare (and less than for Medigap). The Trustees pay the same for everyone on Medicare (MA or Medigap or ???). Taxpayers pay nothing; the money comes from the trustees
11:0811:08, 18 October 2019diffhist+14
Medicare Advantage
Someone sent me a notification about my changes of Sept 30, 2019. I have no idea how to respond directly to that notification but all the Sept 30 2019 changes were either updates based on the 2019 Medicare Trustees Report or deletions of 6-10 year old information hat is severely out of date
30 September 2019
17:1517:15, 30 September 2019diffhist0 m
Medicare (United States)
→Part C: Medicare Advantage plans: Some contributor claims that this section needs more citations yet (1.) it has as many citations as the sections on Parts A, B and D and (2.) it clearly refers readers to the annual Medicare Trustees reports and MedPAC reports (what more citation would anyone need?)
11:2211:22, 30 September 2019diffhist+556
Medicare Advantage
The primary purpose of two sets of changes I made Sept 30, 2019 was to provide recently released 2020 data and to note -- in answer to a request for citations -- that almost all the data in this and earlier versions can be primarily sourced to HHS and CMS itself; it makes no sense, as earlier versions did, to refer to Kaiser -- the leading non-profit Part C sponsor -- when Kaiser itself just gets its data from HHS and CMS; other references are years old (left some in/took some out)
10:3510:35, 30 September 2019diffhist−1,341
Medicare Advantage
Shortened intro by moving relevant info to Benefits and Costs sections, updated with 2020 data released in September 2019, and deleted three sections with only a sentence each and six year old out of date references
09:4009:40, 30 September 2019diffhist−3,068
Medicare Advantage
Intro updated with projected 2020 numbers released in Sept 2019 by HHS and other publicly available info; History section simplified by deleting paragraphs full of now 10 year old data and adding the 2015-2018 data in the most recent Trustees report
13:0513:05, 27 August 2019diffhist+532
Medicare (United States)
rearranged two sentences to explain source of OOP data better; deleted "or both" as a person would almost never choose "both" a public Part C plan and additional private insurance
17:4117:41, 22 July 2019diffhist+20
Medicare Part D
→Program costs: changed the last paragraph of the first section to take out the year specific information previous included; the rough breakdown stays the same year to year
17:3217:32, 22 July 2019diffhist+107
Medicare Part D
→History: I added the last sentence in the first graph simply so I could add a comment that this whole section should be eliminated. The information in the first graph is elsewhere and as for the rest, even if true, who cares -- particularly all the stuff about smuggling drugs from Canada (which I doubt are ture)
15:3515:35, 22 July 2019diffhist+197
Medicare Part D
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC2690175/ this link is a good source of the historical data, particularly Table 1
13:3613:36, 6 April 2019diffhist−33
Medicare (United States)
→Part A: Hospital/hospice insurance: Someone had asked for a citation of the sentence "These coverage amounts increase or decrease yearly on 1st day of the year." It would be in Section 18 of the SS Act if someone wants it badly but the statement is incredibly self evident. Why not also make citation request for the statement that premiums go up every year?
13:2113:21, 6 April 2019diffhist+38
Medicare (United States)
added requested citations, primarily the Medicare Trustees and the MedPAC organization (MedPAC is a creation of Congress that acts in terms of Medicare the way the CBO acts for the rest of government
13:1613:16, 6 April 2019diffhist−372
Medicare (United States)
removed two sentences that said something about the government setting rates, and making some distinction between billable charges and... (cannot figure out what the sentences were trying to say). Whatever, the governement setting rates only applies -- sort of -- to two of the four Parts of Medicare and thine thing about billable charges is true of all healthcare insurance and is not unique to Medicare
28 December 2018
16:1016:10, 28 December 2018diffhist+18
Medicare Advantage
changes -- hope I got them all -- to replace "insurer" with "sponsor." Most public Part C Medicare Advantage plans and other Part C plans are not sponsored by "insurers."
13:1013:10, 28 December 2018diffhist+805
Medicare Advantage
Again, mostly to add the "new" Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment information but I also note that many references to Kaiser could be replaced by the original CMS sources; all Kaiser does is reprint CMS data
12:2912:29, 28 December 2018diffhist+643
Medicare Advantage
Mostly minor changes to update to late 2018 but major change that the Medicare Advantage Open Enrollment period (January - March 2019) has been re-introduced (after it was removed by PPACA)