Medicare Advantage Versus Medicare Supplement | By Philip Warren of Senior Marketing Specialists

In the past few years there has been an ongoing debate, although the debate seems to be waning, regarding what product consumers should be using to supplement their Medicare program, Medicare Supplement or Medicare Advantage? Let’s start this post with a review of the numbers:

• Medicare Supplement – 10,000,000 policies in force
• Medicare Advantage – 14,000,000 people enrolled 

Medicare Advantage has enrolled 14 million individuals in the past seven years and is expecting growth again approaching 2013. Medicare Supplement sales projections for 2012 are expected to reach $3 billion annualized premium in new sales. It appears that both products have found a solid position in the market. What Medicare Advantage has accomplished is penetrate deeper into the demographic of those over 65 years in age who are enrolled in Medicare but who did not always purchase a Medicare Supplement. We’ll review that in our next post. For now let’s take a case in point: I received a call from a client of mine a couple of weeks ago saying he was turning 65, retiring and exiting his existing group coverage from work. This call was different in the fact that my client suffers from colon cancer. Since he is guaranteed the right to purchase any program supplementing Medicare, we had a long discussion. I advised him, premium not being an issue in his case, to purchase a Plan F Medicare Supplement. Why???

• His health is not good and he is experiencing huge costs treating cancer.
• This plan offers guaranteed renew-ability, so his policy cannot be cancelled regardless of his health.
• It would help take the stress off of him and his family regarding paying for cancer treatments.

Had he been healthy and coming off of his group plan, then a Medicare Advantage plan may just as well have fit his needs, especially with no premium and a “pay as you go” program. That’s what we’ll discuss in our next post. The fact is both Medicare Supplement and Medicare Advantage now have a place in our market and practices.