More advertising dollars going to Medicare Advantage

In a recent study done by the Kaiser Family Foundation, detailed here at the Washington Post, they found that insurers spent three times more money promoting comprehensive Medicare plans rather than stand alone drug plans. The study was conducted between October 1 and December 31, 2007, with an increased effort looking at what's going on with Medicare marketing practices. For the most part, the commercials emphasized the benefits centered around preventative care, vision and hearing benefits.

We're getting ready to launch a new blog that looks at the broader issues of Medicare, update your RSS feed now as we get it ready for our official launch: http://medicareadvantagecongress.blogspot.com.

‘I Do’….For Insurance

While financial support has been an important criteria for many who marry, a study, from Kaiser Family Foundation, recently came out about the growing influence that healthcare has on the decision to marry. An astounding 7% of Americans within the past year have either married or know someone who has married for healthcare coverage. This post on the Wall Street Journal provides more detail, including highlighting some issues about how respondents perceived the survey question, resulting in the percentage of 4.5 million Americans who marry with cost of healthcare in mind. Even though the overall percentage is small, it is still a significant part of the population. Here is more information from the full story at the Houston Chronicle.