Medicare Market Insights
Medicare Market Insights
Enrolment & distribution · Sep 10, 2026
The Part D Redesign, Two Years In: Bids, Premiums, and Risk →
“By 2027, the stabilization mechanism is suppressing nearly half of what the premium would otherwise be. That gap is being absorbed by sponsors through bids and, increasingly, through tighter formularies and utilization management, not disappearing.”
Medicare Market Insights, Medicare Market Insights · Sep 10, 2026
Tally’s read
Strock and Emrich argue the IRA's 6% BBP cap deferred—not eliminated—sponsor cost exposure, with NAMBA up 753% since 2023 and the uncapped premium more than double the actual by 2027. Plan operators can now size the 2029 cliff precisely and front-load bid conservatism and formulary tightening before it arrives. Cuts against consensus that the redesign stabilized the market: it stabilized beneficiary perception, not sponsor liability.
The Roster
Who we read on this market, and what each of them is good at.
6 writers, changed deliberately and noted in the changelog when it changes.
Jeff DelVerne The Healthcare Economy
Payer earnings
Pulls the numbers out of Big Six payer calls and says which ones the guidance actually rests on. The best quarterly read on MA margin available.
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Blake Madden Hospitalogy
Provider–payer strategy
Reads deal flow for what it says about bargaining power. Strongest when a transaction is being explained badly by everyone else.
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Kevin O'Leary & Ryan Russell Health Tech Nerds
Market structure & vendors
Weekly Health Tech Reads tracks who is entering and exiting each layer of the stack, with an unusually low tolerance for vendor narrative. The reference for what plans are actually buying.
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Nikhil Krishnan Out-of-Pocket
Payment mechanics
Explains how the money actually moves and why the incentive produces the behaviour. The reference for anything involving risk adjustment plumbing.
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Payer Perspectives
Plan operations
Written from inside the operating problem. The closest thing on this list to a plan operator's own view of the week.
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Medicare Market Insights
Enrolment & distribution
County-level enrolment work that usually arrives before the trade press notices the pattern.
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