Hi. We're Fred Schulte, Maia Rosenfeld, and David Hilzenrath, KFF Health News reporters covering health care from Washington, D.C. Send tips to fschulte@kff.org, mrosenfeld@kff.org, and dhilzenrath@kff.org.
By Fred Schulte, Maia Rosenfeld, and David Hilzenrath
If you judged by the more than 16,400 comments posted on a federal government website, you'd think there was a groundswell of older Americans demanding that federal officials hike payments to their Medicare Advantage health insurance plans.
Yet about 82% of the comments are identical to a letter that appeared on the website of a secretive advocacy group called Medicare Advantage Majority, a data analysis by KFF Health News has found.
The "dark money" group does not reveal its funders or much else — other than to say it is "dedicated to protecting and strengthening Medicare Advantage" and is "powered by hundreds of thousands of local advocates nationwide."
"Our campaign provides information and offers tools for concerned Americans to use to reach decision makers," spokesperson Darren Grubb said in an email. The group has spent more than $3.1 million on hundreds of Facebook ads since September 2024, according to Facebook's Ad Library, a database of the social media company's online ads.
There's no doubt health insurers are unhappy with a January proposal from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, or CMS, to keep Medicare Advantage reimbursement rates essentially flat in 2027 — far less than they expected from the Trump administration.
Medicare Advantage plans offer seniors a private alternative to original Medicare. The insurance plans enroll about 35 million members, more than half the people eligible for Medicare.
CMS is set to announce a final rate decision by early next month. The agency solicited public comments on the proposal from Jan. 26 through Feb. 25 to give interested parties and the public a chance to air their views. As of March 12, CMS said it had received 46,884 comments but had posted only 16,422 online.
Medicare Advantage Majority, which says the rate proposal amounts to a "cut" in services and warns of dire consequences for seniors should it go through, accounted for at least 13,522 of the 16,422 published comments as of March 12.
Critics warn that these sorts of campaigns may create a misleading impression of grassroots support, especially when it's not clear who is financing them.
"It puts a different spin on a massive groundswell of comments to know all are being driven by one specific organization," said Michael Beckel, director of money in politics reform for Issue One, a group that seeks to limit the influence of money on government policy and legislation.
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