Original Medicare tops ratings in survey, beating out Medicare Advantage and employer plans

Original Medicare received high marks in a new Insurance.com Google survey of nearly 1,000 people. 

Original Medicare enrollees gave higher marks to their insurance than people with Medicare Advantage, an employer-based plan, Medicaid or individual insurance. Members with individual or Affordable Care Act (ACA) plans rated their plans the worst.

A whopping 43% of people with an Original Medicare plan rated their health insurance as a 5 (the highest mark). Thirty-nine percent gave it a 4. Medicare Advantage, which are Medicare plans provided by private insurers, didn’t rate quite as highly. Thirty-seven percent with Medicare Advantage gave their plans a 5 and 35% ranked it a 4.

So, combining 5s and 4s:

• 82% of people with Original Medicare gave their plans the two highest marks
• 72% of those with Medicare Advantage gave their health insurance the two highest marks

No one with an Original Medicare plan ranked it a 1 (the lowest grade). Meanwhile, 7% of people with Medicare Advantage rated it a 1. 

Original Medicare also performed better than employer-sponsored insurance. Employer-based insurance had similar results to Medicare Advantage (39% gave it a 5; 33% gave it a 4). 

Supporters of Medicare for all argue that people don’t like their current health insurance. However, we found 72% ranked their employer-based insurance highly. 

Medicaid, which provides health insurance for low-income people, saw a wide variation in satisfaction. Thirty-nine percent gave Medicaid a 5 and 22% ranked it a 4. However, 18% graded Medicaid plans a 2 and 6% rated it only a 1 (the lowest score).

Unlike Medicare, which is run nationally, states handle Medicaid programs with federal government oversight. Being state-run means Medicaid programs can vary widely, including who’s eligible for coverage. Those differences are likely partly responsible for the vast grading differences in the survey.

Medicaid and every other type of health plan performed much better than individual health plans. Insurance.com found great dissatisfaction with those plans. The ACA made it easier for people to get an individual health plan. It created subsidies to help lower-income people pay for plans on the ACA marketplace. That improved access and lowered health costs for many Americans. Those improvements weren’t enough to improve individual plan satisfaction.

Only 14% of respondents with individual insurance gave their plans a top grade. The most common grade was a 2 (28%). Fourteen percent of people with an individual plan gave their coverage the lowest mark. Overall, 42% of people with an individual or ACA plan rated their plan poorly. That’s the worst rating by far.

Non-subsidized individual plans often cost more than employer-based insurance or Medicare. Those higher costs likely influenced the low ratings for individual plans.
Here are the results: