The Medicare Advantage program may be the only U.S. health plan program administered directly by private insurers that had enrollment growth over 1% in 2018.
Analysts at Mark Farrah Associates report, in a new review of health insurance enrollment data, that health insurers were providing or administering health coverage for 265 million of the 327 million U.S. residents in the fourth quarter of 2018.
The number of people with some kind of privately insured or directly administered coverage was down 0.16% from the total for the fourth quarter of 2017.
(Related: Individual Major Medical Use Dropped 10% in 2017: Mark Farrah)
Private companies do administer the traditional Medicare Part A hospitalization and Medicare Part B outpatient and physician services for the federal government, and private companies also help with administration of many states’ state-run Medicaid programs.
But, in the private health insurance data, the Mark Farrah Associates analysts include only data for commercial health insurance, managed care coverage, self-insured employer health plans, Medicaid plans classified as managed Medicaid plans, and Medicare Advantage plans.