New Reports Examine the Impact of Medicare Advantage Advertising

Duaine · Sep 21, 2023

TV airways were flooded with ads for Medicare plans. There were 643,852 airings of English-language Medicare ads run on broadcast television and national cable between October 1, 2022, and December 7, 2022, an average of more than 9,500 airings per day. This is more than were seen for any individual Healthcare.gov open enrollment period between 2013 and 2018. Most—four of every five ads—were sponsored by health insurers, with the remaining sponsored by brokers and other third-party entities, such as marketing companies. Some TV ads used celebrity endorsements to promote MA.Joe Namath was featured more often than any other celebrity, appearing in nearly 10% of all MA ads.

Many MA ads were misleading or confusing by design.

Ads often implied Medicare’s endorsement. Over 27% of ads included a government-issued Medicare card or image that resembled it, and 16% urged viewers to call a privately-run phone line described as a “Medicare” hotline. Importantly, new rules that take effect before this year’s open enrollment period should help prevent this, by prohibiting the misleading use of the Medicare name, logo, or card in private marketing and communication materials.

Other ads used language to suggest viewers were “missing out” on benefits they were “entitled to,” or receiving incomplete coverage under OM. Such framing can give viewers with OM the incorrect impression they need to take action, have inadequate coverage, or have overlooked a necessary enrollment step.

Medicare Advantage ad airings often featured active “enrollees” engaged in physical activities (26%) but few (less than 5%) showed people who appeared to have a serious health problem or visible disability. This may represent an effort by insurers to target people in good health, but it fails to mirror the demographics of the Medicare population: One-fifth (22%) of Medicare beneficiaries are in fair or poor self-reported health, and more than one-quarter (28%) have at least one functional impairment.