Advertising By Insurers Favors Medicare Advantage Over Stand-alone Drug Plans, Kaiser Analysis Finds

As the marketing period for 2009 Medicare plans nears, a new Kaiser Family Foundation study finds that insurers last year placed three times more advertisements to promote Medicare Advantage plans than they did to promote stand-alone Medicare drug plans. The new analysis of advertising by private plans during the enrollment period leading up to 2008 comes amid heightened Congressional attention to Medicare plan marketing practices. Insurers are permitted to advertise their 2009 plan options beginning Oct. 1.