ProfileMONITORINGMEDICARE+CHOICE Medicare Beneficiaries and Choice in the Baltimore Metropolitan Area, 2000

Medicare is a national program, but the people it serves—theelderly and many persons with disabilities—live in statesand local communities. Despite substantial and high-profile concern about the choices that Medicare offers beneficiaries, there is very little information to describe how Medicare+Choice is working at the local level where beneficiaries make decisions based on the physi-cians, hospitals, and health plans available to them. Under Medicare+Choice, beneficiaries in Baltimore have had two options: stay in traditional Medicare and decide whether and how to obtain supplemental coverage, or join a coordinated care plan such as an HMO. It is important to understand how beneficiaries see their choices to determine how to make the program work better for them where they live. This profile highlights how beneficiaries are dealing with Medicare and Medicare+Choice in the Baltimore metropolitan statistical area (MSA). We describe the demographic characteristics, supplemental coverage, relevance of choice, and information sources used to sup-port choice by beneficiaries. Data come from a week-long visit to Baltimore in winter 2000 and a survey of Medicare beneficiaries i