Medicare: Supplemental Coverage - Kaiser Family Foundation

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Medicare: Supplemental Coverage

Retiree Health VEBAs: A New Twist On An Old Paradigm
This issue brief provides an overview of stand-alone Voluntary Employees' Beneficiary Association trusts, through which employers have been able to rid themselves of future obligations to pay retiree health benefits in exchange for making a significant payment to designed to approximate the projected cost of these benefits. The paper include three case studies, including the VEBAs at the Big Three automakers.

Health Care on a Budget: An Analysis of Spending by Medicare Households
This report finds that Medicare beneficiaries' out-of-pocket health care costs comprise a significant share of their household expenses--14.1 percent of all expenditures, which is less than housing but about the same as transportation and food.

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Retiree Health VEBAs: A New Twist On An Old Paradigm -- March 2009
This issue brief provides an overview of stand-alone Voluntary Employees’ Beneficiary Association trusts, through which employers have been able to rid themselves of future obligations to pay retiree health benefits in exchange for making a significant payment to designed to approximate the projected cost of these benefits. The paper include three case studies, including the VEBAs at the Big Three automakers.

The Emerging Role of Group Medicare Private Fee-for-Service Plans -- December 2008
This brief examines the recent boom in Medicare Advantage enrollment attributable to employers contracting with private fee-for-service plans to serve their retirees.

Medicare: A Primer -- December 2008
This primer provides an overview of the Medicare program, how it is structured, who it serves, and how it works.

Medicare at a Glance - Fact Sheet -- November 2008
This fact sheet provides a basic overview of the Medicare program, including how it is financed, who is eligible and what benefits are covered under the program. In addition, it describes supplemental health insurance, benefits provided by the new drug law and data on Medicare expenditures and financing.

Medicare Part D 2009 Data Spotlight: Low-Income Subsidy Plan Availability -- November 2008
This Medicare Part D Data Spotlight focuses on the availability of drug plans for beneficiaries receiving the Part D low-income subsidy in 2009 and changes since 2006. The spotlight is one in a series analyzing key aspects of the Medicare Part D drug plans that will be available to beneficiaries in 2009.

How Does the Benefit Value of Medicare Compare to the Benefit Value of Typical Large Employer Plans? -- September 2008
This Kaiser Family Foundation analysis finds that, even with its new drug benefit, Medicare on average provides less generous benefits to seniors than they would receive under a typical large-employer health plan or the most popular plan available to federal employees.

Kaiser Fast Facts -- May 2008
“Kaiser Fast Facts” features “QuickTakes” and “Kaiser Slides” – two tools that provide direct access to facts, data and slides about the nation's health care system and programs, in an easy-to-use format. “QuickTakes” presents an inventory of facts-at-a-glance and "Kaiser Slides" allows Web visitors to freely view, download and print graphics and tables of health policy statistics and trends.

Low-Income Assistance Under the Medicare Drug Benefit -- February 2008
This fact sheet provides an overview of the Medicare drug benefit and the additional subsidies available to certain eligible low-income beneficiaries.

2006 Kaiser/Hewitt Retiree Health Benefits Survey -- December 2006
The 2006 Kaiser/Hewitt survey of large businesses that provide retiree health benefits to their workers assesses their evolving responses to the new Medicare drug benefit in 2006. It also looks at the rising costs and changing benefits of retiree health coverage overall in 2006, as well as the outlook for 2007 and beyond.

Retired Steelworkers and Their Health Benefits: Results from a 2004 Survey -- May 2006
This Kaiser survey report looks at how the bankruptcies of two steel companies, the LTV Corporation and Bethlehem Steel, affected health coverage for about 200,000 of the companies' retirees and dependents, and it provides insight into the impact of a tax credit enacted by Congress in 2002 to provide temporary assistance to workers and retirees in "distressed" industries, including the steel industry.

This issue brief provides an overview of stand-alone Voluntary Employees’ Beneficiary Association trusts, through which employers have been able to rid themselves of future obligations to pay retiree health benefits in exchange for making a significant payment to designed to approximate the projected cost of these benefits. The paper include three case studies, including the VEBAs at the Big Three automakers.

This brief examines the recent boom in Medicare Advantage enrollment attributable to employers contracting with private fee-for-service plans to serve their retirees.

This primer provides an overview of the Medicare program, how it is structured, who it serves, and how it works.

This fact sheet provides a basic overview of the Medicare program, including how it is financed, who is eligible and what benefits are covered under the program. In addition, it describes supplemental health insurance, benefits provided by the new drug law and data on Medicare expenditures and financing.

This Medicare Part D Data Spotlight focuses on the availability of drug plans for beneficiaries receiving the Part D low-income subsidy in 2009 and changes since 2006. The spotlight is one in a series analyzing key aspects of the Medicare Part D drug plans that will be available to beneficiaries in 2009.

This Kaiser Family Foundation analysis finds that, even with its new drug benefit, Medicare on average provides less generous benefits to seniors than they would receive under a typical large-employer health plan or the most popular plan available to federal employees.

“Kaiser Fast Facts” features “QuickTakes” and “Kaiser Slides” – two tools that provide direct access to facts, data and slides about the nation's health care system and programs, in an easy-to-use format. “QuickTakes” presents an inventory of facts-at-a-glance and "Kaiser Slides" allows Web visitors to freely view, download and print graphics and tables of health policy statistics and trends.

This fact sheet provides an overview of the Medicare drug benefit and the additional subsidies available to certain eligible low-income beneficiaries.

The 2006 Kaiser/Hewitt survey of large businesses that provide retiree health benefits to their workers assesses their evolving responses to the new Medicare drug benefit in 2006. It also looks at the rising costs and changing benefits of retiree health coverage overall in 2006, as well as the outlook for 2007 and beyond.

This Kaiser survey report looks at how the bankruptcies of two steel companies, the LTV Corporation and Bethlehem Steel, affected health coverage for about 200,000 of the companies' retirees and dependents, and it provides insight into the impact of a tax credit enacted by Congress in 2002 to provide temporary assistance to workers and retirees in "distressed" industries, including the steel industry.

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Medicare: Supplemental Coverage

Many Medicare beneficiaries have some type of supplemental insurance coverage to help fill the gaps in Medicare’s benefit package and help with Medicare’s cost-sharing requirements. Employer and union-sponsored plans are a leading source of supplemental coverage, providing health benefits to about one in three Medicare beneficiaries. Medicare Advantage plans are another source of supplemental coverage for people on Medicare. Many Medicare Advantage plan enrollees receive additional benefits and face lower cost-sharing requirements than they would under traditional fee-for-service Medicare.

Medigap policies – also called Medicare supplements – are sold by private insurance companies and help cover Medicare’s cost-sharing requirements and fill gaps in the benefit package. Medicaid, the federal-state program that provides health and long-term care coverage to low-income Americans, is a source of supplemental coverage for roughly 8 million Medicare beneficiaries with low incomes and modest assets. These beneficiaries are known as “dual eligibles” because they are dually eligible for Medicare and Medicaid.