Medigap holders' income distribution shifts

Issuers of Medicare supplement (Medigap) insurance may be having a harder time courting consumers with a moderately high income, or the percentage of consumers with a moderately high income may be dropping.

Analysts at America’s Health Insurance Plans (AHIP) have raised that possibility with a table included in a new batch of Medigap enrollee demographic data drawn from the official Medicare program beneficiary survey data files.

Consumers who use the traditional Medicare program can use Medigap policies to cover the cost of the traditional program’s deductibles, co-payments and coinsurance amounts.

The AHIP analysts found that 21 percent of all Medicare enrollees had Medigap coverage of some type in 2013, the same as in 2012.

When the analysts broke out the enrollees by income category, they found that the percentage of enrollees in the $50,000-and-over income category increased to 35 percent, from 32 percent.

The percentage in most other income categories increased or stayed the same, but the percentage with income from $40,000 to $49,999 fell to 12 percent, from 13 percent.

For urban Medigap enrollees, the percentage in that income category fell to 12 percent, from 13 percent.