Medicare Advantage

Medicare Advantage (Medicare Part C, MA) is a capitated program for providing Medicare benefits in the United States. Under Part C, Medicare pays a sponsor a fixed payment. The sponsor then pays for the health care expenses of enrollees. Sponsors are allowed to vary the benefits from those provided by Medicare's Parts A and B as long as they provide the actuarial equivalent of those programs. The sponsors vary from primarily integrated health delivery systems to unions to other types of non profit charities to insurance companies. The largest sponsor is a hybrid: the non profit charity AARP using UnitedHealth.