The Bush administration and Republicans like Medicare Advantage because it lets the elderly and disabled choose to get their health benefits through private insurers rather than through traditional Medicare.

...the cost generally isn't subsidized by employers. Bloom recommends people consider buying long-term care insurance when they're in their 50s. Policies generally cost less the earlier in life they're purchased. While someone may never end up needing long-term care, the financial hit can be hard if it is needed, with the average cost of a one-year stay in a private room at a nursing home now at more than $76,000, Bloom said. In part because of those high costs, about...

Beginning this summer, Michigan physicians and hospitals will be able to go online to check eligibility and benefit information for people with Traditional Medicare coverage.

WellPoint, Inc. (NYSE: WLP) announced today that its National Government Services, Inc., subsidiary was selected by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to administer the Medicare Administrative Contract (MAC) for Jurisdiction 13, which includes the states of New York and Connecticut.

The study comes amid rising health care costs and a report by Medicare's trustees that the program's hospital fund will go broke in 11 years. Among the 93 teaching hospitals studied, the average cost of hospital care over the two years was 67,369 per person.