Medicare Advantage

November 11, 2025

Key Findings

A large majority (76%) of survey respondents felt that bringing Medicare Advantage (MA) spending in line with traditional Medicare spending would substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by MA plans. Respondents were split on whether this would also reduce the number of MA plans available to beneficiaries or increase the cost to beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost sharing.
A number of respondents who said that lowering MA spending would likely result in reductions in MA supplemental benefits noted that this may not necessarily be a negative outcome, given uncertainty about the value and utilization of these benefits.
A plurality of experts (45%) disagreed or strongly disagreed that new requirements for MA plans to publicly report data on prior authorization would result in improvements in access to care for beneficiaries. Another 34% were uncertain about the impact of these requirements.
More than half of experts (56%) agreed or strongly agreed that expanding traditional Medicare benefits to include dental and vision coverage would lead more beneficiaries to choose traditional Medicare instead of MA plans. Several of those who disagreed noted that other factors, such as limits on out-of-pocket spending, more insurer advertising and consumer engagement, and the simplicity of choosing a single plan, have a larger influence on MA enrollment.

Read the full Health Affairs Forefront summary of results here

Survey Questions

Please note: our surveys will consistently use two modifiers to describe the size of an effect: “Substantial”: when an effect is large enough to meaningfully influence policy decisions, program implementation, or outcomes of interest “Measurable”: when the direction of an effect is clear, but the effect may not be sufficiently large to make much of a difference for a given policy, program, or outcome.

The share of Medicare beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare Advantage (MA) has increased considerably over the past decade, from 31% in 2015 to 54% in 2025. During this period, total per-enrollee MA spending has risen faster than traditional Medicare spending, and policymakers are now considering or implementing program reforms. Meanwhile, several large MA insurers have announced that they will stop offering plans in some counties in 2026.

Response rate of 98% (62 out of 63 panelists responded)

Question 1:

Bringing total MA spending in line with total traditional Medicare spending would: (select all that apply)

a. Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers
b. Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans
c. Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing
d. None of the above
e. No opinion

Question 2: Starting in 2026, MA insurers will be required to publicly report some data on prior authorization denials, approvals, and appeals. This will produce substantial improvements in access to care for beneficiaries.

a. Strongly Agree
b. Agreer
c. Uncertain
d. Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
f. No Opinion

Question 3: Expanding traditional Medicare benefits to include dental and vision coverage would lead substantially more beneficiaries to choose traditional Medicare coverage instead of MA plans.

a. Strongly Agree
b. Agreer
c. Uncertain
d. Disagree
e. Strongly Disagree
f. No Opinion

Individual Survey Responses

Question One

Bringing total MA spending in line with total traditional Medicare spending would: (select all that apply)

Name	Vote	Confidence	Comments
Margarita Alegria	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	6
David Asch	Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	4	I don’t have a good understand of the selection effects that are responsible for people’s decision to use these plans. I think a lot of people are attracted to what seem like more comprehensive benefits but also a lot of people are blindly induced into thinking these plans are the only way to go. While this comment is not responsive to the question, it seems central to the issue.
John Ayanian	Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	5
Peter Bach	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	7
Laurence Baker	Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	6
David Blumenthal	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	7	The term “in line with” is vague. If it means “equal to”, then my responses hold. If it means higher but closer, then the effects are modified.
Erin Fuse Brown	Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	4	Pretty confident that reducing MA spending to TM levels would reduce the number of MA plans available, but unclear whether that is a bad outcome as a policy matter because there are too many plan choices currently. Much less confident about the magnitude of the reduction of supplemental benefits (i.e., whether it would be “substantial” or not).
Melinda Buntin	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	8
Michael F. Cannon	Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	6	Could also result in narrower networks, etc.
Lawrence Casalino	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	8	Expansion of MA has been made possible by overpayments.
Amitabh Chandra	Did not answer
Lanhee J. Chen	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	7
Michael Chernew	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	7	The issue is what substantially, means. i view this proposal as suggesting about a 20% cut. If half passed through, that’s 10% and I consider that substantial
Janet Currie	Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers	6	I’m assuming you mean spending per beneficiary. I believe that plans will still have an incentive to cream skim through their choice of supplemental benefits and/or cost sharing provisions, so the main effect would be on number of plans.
Lesley Curtis	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	5
David Cutler	Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	6
Julie Donohue	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing	6
Joseph Doyle	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	6	Risk adjustment is very important consideration in how the impacts would be felt.
David Dranove	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	9
Stacie Dusetzina	Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	6	I believe MA plans would reduce supplemental benefit generosity rather than increase cost sharing in order to continue to attract beneficiaries.
Jose Esarce	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	8
Elliott Fisher	None of the above	6	I suspect that the plans will assert that all 3 are likely. The key question is whether that will in fact be harmful to Medicare beneficiaries and to the Medicare program overall.
Richard Frank	Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	6
Craig Garthwaite	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	7	While the rhetoric is often that the spending gap between MA and FFS is leading to excess profits for firms, I believe the real story is a bit more complicated. They do seem to have fueled an arms race in supplemental benefits – some of which are of dubious value. They have also resulted in insurance products that are far more complete than FFS. It is unclear which dimensions of the plans would be curtailed, though it is likely to be a mixture of benefit changes, cost sharing increases and/or exits from some markets.
Darrell Gaskin	Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	7	MA beneficiaries are too price sensitive for MA plans to increase premiums and cost sharing. Even with a slow in MA spending, MA plans will be profitable. Savings will come from providers and supplemental benefits that beneficiaries don’t use.
Martin Gaynor	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	8	Reducing MA spending would very likely reduce the number of MA plans, although it’s unclear how large the effect would be.
Sherry Glied	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	6
David Grabowski	Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	7
Jonathan Gruber	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	5
Vivian Ho	Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	5	So much of the outcome depends upon CMS’ ability to reduce the ability of some insurers to game the system. There are clearly excess profits in MA, so spending can be lowered while maintaining supplementary benefits. But CMS so far has shown little appetite for controlling upcoding and denials.
Jason Hockenberry	Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	9
Haiden Huskamp	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers	8
Benedic Ippolito	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	8
Anupam Jena	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers	6
Nancy Keating	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	4	I expect that there will be fewer plans available, fewer supplemental benefits, and higher premiums and cost sharing, but would have preferred the modifier to be “measurably” instead of “substantially”.
Aaron Kesselheim	Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	5
Jonathan Kolstad	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	8
R Tamara Konetzka	None of the above	6	It is likely that some supplemental benefits would be reduced, and/or that cost sharing would increase, but whether these changes are substantial remains to be seen. Furthermore, since the use and value of the extra benefits is uncertain, a reduction would not necessarily be bad for Medicare overall. Similarly, a reduction in the number of MA plans in some markets would not necessarily be a bad thing. The key point here may be heterogeneity — a minority of MA enrollees in some plans and some markets may be worse off under this change, but on average it seems a worthy and necessary goal.
Rick Kronick	None of the above	4	I don’t think the difference between MA spending and TM spending, especially after the implementation of V28, is as large as is sometimes assumed. Bringing MA spending in line with TM spending may not require large changes in MA payment. Further, early evidence about the effects of V28 in 2024 and 2025 suggests that it did not have a large effect on supplemental benefits, cost-sharing, or premiums.
Valerie Lewis	No Opinion	0
Nicole Maestas	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	10
Tom McGuire	None of the above	7
Ellen Meara	Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers	4
Ateev Mehrotra	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	8	We are already seeing that MA plans will cut benefits and pull out of some markets. But the key is that this is not necessarily a bad thing.
David Meltzer	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	9
Joseph Newhouse	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	9
Sean Nicholson	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing	7
Steve Parente	Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	9	I studied Medicare HMO Exit with RWJ funding from 1999 to 2003 and have empirical evidence to back up my claims.
Stephen Patrick	Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	6	I think the market could respond in different ways. I suspect fewer plans would be in the market if the incentives are not aligned.
Harold Pollack	Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	2	Implementation details matter here. My own opinion is not particularly valuable when compared with others who bring more granular expertise.
Daniel Polsky	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	8	Carriers have pressure to maintain their margins and will adjust to do so.
Ninez Ponce	No Opinion	0
Thomas Rice	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	6
Meredith Rosenthal	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers	6	In theory cutting MA payments could have all of these effects. whether it does or not depends on how large the rents are to MA now so it is a bit unknown. I have high confidence that at least one of these things will occur but it is unclear what the balance will be. I think the supplemental benefits are mostly about attracting healthy beneficiaries (cream skimming) and are not much used in practice so these seem less likely to be cut.
Joseph Ross	None of the above	5	If spending were aligned with traditional Medicare, more plans would be profitable and supplemental services could still be offered.
Brendan Saloner	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers	3
Kosali Simon	Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	7	A point to consider would be how welfare enhancing we think different supplemental benefits currently offered are.
Jon Skinner	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	7
Ben Sommers	Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	5	hinges on the phrase ‘substantial,’ and also whether this is primarily accomplished by reducing MA payment, adding TM benefits, or a combination.
Neeraj Sood	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	8	I am assuming a 20% rate cut which is unprecedented.
David Stevenson	Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	5
Kevin Volpp	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	8
Rachel Werner	Substantially increase cost to MA beneficiaries through higher premiums or cost-sharing, Substantially reduce the number of MA plans available to consumers, Substantially reduce the supplemental benefits offered by plans	3

Question Two

Starting in 2026, MA insurers will be required to publicly report some data on prior authorization denials, approvals, and appeals. This will produce substantial improvements in access to care for beneficiaries.

Name	Vote	Confidence	Comments
Margarita Alegria	Agree	9
David Asch	Disagree	5	I am not sure customers will attend to this enough to motivate a change in MA plan behavior.
John Ayanian	Uncertain	3
Peter Bach	Uncertain	6
Laurence Baker	Disagree	7
David Blumenthal	Agree	6
Erin Fuse Brown	Disagree	8
Melinda Buntin	Uncertain	8
Michael F. Cannon	Strongly Disagree	8	Why should we suppose Medicare will measure this any better than it measures other dimensions of quality?
Lawrence Casalino	Uncertain	5
Amitabh Chandra	Did not answer
Lanhee J. Chen	Uncertain	8
Michael Chernew	Uncertain	10	I am sure I am uncertain. I lean towards disagree,
Janet Currie	Agree	6	I don’t think there is strong evidence about this, but we do know that many plans have a high level of denials for care that should be allowed.
Lesley Curtis	Agree	6
David Cutler	Agree	6
Julie Donohue	Uncertain	8	Public reporting in other health insurance markets hasn’t always led to big changes.
Joseph Doyle	Disagree	8
David Dranove	Disagree	7
Stacie Dusetzina	Disagree	6	I believe that reporting would need to have a financial impact (e.g., reduce start rating / bonus) to result in changes to beneficiary experience.
Jose Esarce	Uncertain	7
Elliott Fisher	Disagree	8
Richard Frank	Disagree	8
Craig Garthwaite	Disagree	5
Darrell Gaskin	Uncertain	4
Martin Gaynor	Agree	6	Plans’ fears of negative publicity will probably result in fewer denials of care, although it’s not clear that beneficiaries will know about this information or if they will use it. It’s also likely that plans will find other ways to reduce utilization, so it’s not clear if access will increase and costs to beneficiaries may go up.
Sherry Glied	Strongly Disagree	8	Prior evidence suggests this sort of information is rarely consulted.
David Grabowski	Agree	7	I am very much in favor of the collection of these data but worry about whether they will move the needle in terms of access.
Jonathan Gruber	Uncertain	10
Vivian Ho	Uncertain	10
Jason Hockenberry	Disagree	7	I expect that this will lead to efforts to further narrow networks.
Haiden Huskamp	Disagree	6
Benedic Ippolito	Uncertain	1
Anupam Jena	Uncertain	6
Nancy Keating	Uncertain	5	Glad to see some action on prior authorization, but I think we need time to understand how plans respond to the new requirements; I am not yet convinced that we’ll see substantial benefits to patients.
Aaron Kesselheim	Disagree	7	Transparency of this type may be important but is less likely to lead to ‘substantial improvements’ for patients than more thoughtful direct regulation (appeals in particular are less common)
Jonathan Kolstad	Disagree	8	Information alone has not been shown to drive demand to improve product innovation and design
R Tamara Konetzka	Disagree	7	Having these data will be good, but won’t necessarily change access unless the data lead to changes in policy. Furthermore, the data won’t reflect the full effects of prior auth and denials — the provider burden and behavior changes (avoiding treatments that will require prior auth).
Rick Kronick	Disagree	5	Increased scrutiny on prior authorization and appeals is certainly desirable, and attention from CMS and the public will likely result in some improvements in decision making processes. However, it will be difficult to assure that statistics on denials and appeals are fully comparable across MA plans or over time, and, at a minimum, it will likely take some number of years before the statistics are seen as fully credible.
Valerie Lewis	Uncertain	10	I think this is an important step, but the literature on public reporting and its effects show sometimes it doesn’t have intended effects. So while I think this moves toward better access, I suspect much more would be needed and public reporting alone may be gamed or have uncertain effects.
Nicole Maestas	Disagree	6	Most likely this would cause some beneficiaries to shift from denying plans to approving plans. Some denying plans will exit. Approving plans will in turn have to deny more to constrain costs.
Tom McGuire	Disagree	7
Ellen Meara	Disagree	8
Ateev Mehrotra	Uncertain	6
David Meltzer	Agree	8
Joseph Newhouse	Strongly Disagree	9	Most denials are for incomplete information or for services not covered in the contract. The former, of course, are often ultimately approved.
Sean Nicholson	Disagree	8
Steve Parente	Uncertain	8	It’s unclear what consumers will find useful from the data to change behavior.
Stephen Patrick	Disagree	8	I’m skeptical this will make a meaningful change. It’s a positive step, but requires consumers to respond to the information.
Harold Pollack	Agree	4	This appears to be a good idea. The general equilibrium impacts are less clear.
Daniel Polsky	Disagree	7	Pressure to reduce prior auth will also affect margins for carriers which will reduce access as described in #1. This will be broader than the more noticible, but less frequent, unfair denials that get avoided by a policy like the one described.
Ninez Ponce	Agree	8
Thomas Rice	Uncertain	8
Meredith Rosenthal	Disagree	10	Transparency is rarely effective and it will be hard to know what to make of these data.
Joseph Ross	Disagree	8	I don’t think that public reporting alone will change care for beneficiaries.
Brendan Saloner	Agree	5
Kosali Simon	Uncertain	6	The reason is we don’t know if patients are able to see these factors transparently when they select plans, there is a lot of inertia
Jon Skinner	Disagree	6
Ben Sommers	Agree	7
Neeraj Sood	Uncertain	5
David Stevenson	Disagree	7
Kevin Volpp	Agree	7
Rachel Werner	Uncertain	5

Question Three

Expanding traditional Medicare benefits to include dental and vision coverage would lead substantially more beneficiaries to choose traditional Medicare coverage instead of MA plans.

Name	Vote	Confidence	Comments
Margarita Alegria	Agree	7
David Asch	Agree	5
John Ayanian	Agree	3
Peter Bach	Disagree	8
Laurence Baker	Disagree	7
David Blumenthal	Disagree	8	The appeal of MA includes but goes beyond vision and dental — limits on oop payments, simplicity of enrolling in one plan, and sophisticated advertising/marketing as we now see during open enrollment.
Erin Fuse Brown	Uncertain	3	It’s difficult to anticipate the movement of benes from MA to TM without knowing what levels of subsidies there would be, what the premiums would be (which may be more influential factor), and whether cost-sharing is capped in TM.
Melinda Buntin	Agree	9
Michael F. Cannon	Uncertain	5
Lawrence Casalino	Strongly Agree	8	Would depend on the extent to which costs to beneficiaries of traditional Medicare care increased.
Amitabh Chandra	Did not answer
Lanhee J. Chen	Disagree	8
Michael Chernew	Agree	6	As long as costs don’t rise. Main caveat is Part D. A key issue is how benchmarks adjust.
Janet Currie	Agree	6	Again, I’m not sure how much direct evidence there is that people are choosing MA because of dental or vision benefits, but it does seem plausible that they would.
Lesley Curtis	Disagree	4
David Cutler	Agree	3
Julie Donohue	Agree	7
Joseph Doyle	Agree	7
David Dranove	Agree	7
Stacie Dusetzina	Uncertain	5	Not as clear to me which supplemental benefits are driving MA uptake (versus overall lower costs, avoidance of Medigap premium, and promotion of MA plans).
Jose Esarce	Agree	7
Elliott Fisher	Strongly Agree	9
Richard Frank	Uncertain	3
Craig Garthwaite	Agree	6	It does appear that dental in particular is a major selling point of MA plans – if this were available for FFS plans then it would change the value proposition for MA and its reduced network.
Darrell Gaskin	Agree	8	MA beneficiaries value these benefits.
Martin Gaynor	Agree	7	This seems likely, but if traditional Medicare plus a supplemental plan costs significantly more than MA (as it does now) then there may not be a substantial change.
Sherry Glied	Agree	6
David Grabowski	Agree	7
Jonathan Gruber	Strongly Agree	8	Assuming that rates adjust upwards to offset costs
Vivian Ho	Disagree	8	Seniors are price sensitive, but dental and vision is too small a portion of seniors’ total expected costs to generate a “substantial” response.
Jason Hockenberry	Uncertain	8	It’s not clear that these are the main drivers of beneficiaries electing MA plans over TM.
Haiden Huskamp	Disagree	5
Benedic Ippolito	Uncertain	7	Depends if and how this affects MA benchmarks and subsequent plan generosity in MA
Anupam Jena	Uncertain	6
Nancy Keating	Agree	5	It will depend in part on how much premiums increase with these additions and how traditional Medicare compares with Medicare Advantage options.
Aaron Kesselheim	Uncertain	7	We should do this, of course, but whether it will be the deciding factor for “substantially” more patients is unclear to me
Jonathan Kolstad	Disagree	8
R Tamara Konetzka	Agree	8	These extra benefits are often cited as reasons that beneficiaries choose MA, so offering them in TM would be likely to change the balance.
Rick Kronick	Disagree	6	I don’t think the growth in MA enrollment growth has primarily been driven by increases in MA rebates. And to the extent that rebates are an important part of MA enrollment growth, the financial benefits of MA (the out-of-pocket maximum, lower deductibles, fixed copayments rather than coinsurance, no Part D premium for most MA plans) likely matter more than the limited vision and dental coverage that MA plans provide.
Valerie Lewis	Uncertain	10	Have not read the literature on this. I think this could help but I’m skeptical that many beneficiaries are choosing MA plans solely due to these benefits such that this change alone would substantially change enrollment.
Nicole Maestas	Uncertain	9	Maybe. Cost-sharing in TM would still be a deterrant.
Tom McGuire	Disagree	7
Ellen Meara	Strongly disagree	9	Traditional Medicare has substantial cost sharing while MA offers many zero premium low cost sharing plans. Dental & vision won’t be enough to move people.
Ateev Mehrotra	Uncertain	5	Unclear the degree to which these benefits are critical in driving choice of plans.
David Meltzer	Agree	8
Joseph Newhouse	Uncertain	10	It depends on how one defines “substantial.” Adding dental and vision would almost certainly cause some switching, but how much would depend on any remaining difference in the generosity of the benefits. Those benefits already differ across MA plans. In addition, many could be deterred by medical rating of supplemental plans.
Sean Nicholson	Agree	5
Steve Parente	Uncertain	7	Traditional Medicare has lousy consumer engagement compared to MA
Stephen Patrick	Strongly Agree	8
Harold Pollack	Agree	4	This is an excellent idea, independent of patient selection across plans. Many traditional Medicare participants have unmet vision and dental needs.
Daniel Polsky	Strongly Agree	9	The popularity of MA is tied to its relative generosity which is as much a function of MA becoming more generous as it is about TM becoming less generous (as vision and dental costs become a more meaningful financial exposure).
Ninez Ponce	Uncertain	5
Thomas Rice	Agree	7
Meredith Rosenthal	Disagree	8	This could have a small effect but “substantially” seems like a stretch.
Joseph Ross	Strongly Agree	9
Brendan Saloner	Agree	5
Kosali Simon	Strongly Agree	7
Jon Skinner	Strongly Agree	8
Ben Sommers	Agree	7
Neeraj Sood	Agree	7
David Stevenson	Strongly Agree	8
Kevin Volpp	Disagree	7
Rachel Werner	Uncertain	5

Meet our panel of experts

Cornell Health Policy Center