The Medicare Advantage program is likely to continue to be a fulcrum for change in health insurance markets. It is a highly regulated private market. Policymakers have and will continue to experiment with its design to attempt to lower costs and improve access to higher-quality care.
Author: William S. Custer, PhD, is the director of the Center for Health Services Research in the J. Mack Robinson College of Business at Georgia State University. Previously, he was the director of research at the Employee Benefit Research Institute (EBRI) in Washington, D.C. Prior to joining EBRI, Dr. Custer was an economist in the Center for Health Policy Research at the American Medical Association, and served as assistant professor of economics at Northern Illinois University.