Medicare advantage plans to increase premiums for some -- but not all -- in 2010

Kaiser Health News staff writer Phil Galewitz reports on the future prospects for seniors who are enrolled in  Medicare Advantage. "In Miami next year, seniors once again won't have to pay any monthly premiums for a Medicare health plan sold by HMO giant Humana Inc. Meanwhile, in Philadelphia, seniors will pay premiums of $52 - up from zero - for the least expensive HMO plan from Independence Blue Cross. The new information underscores the drastic differences in how seniors will be affected - depending on where they live -- by federal funding cuts next year to private Medicare health plans known as Medicare Advantage (10/1).

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This article was reprinted from khn.org with permission from the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. Kaiser Health News, an editorially independent news service, is a program of the Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan health care policy research organization unaffiliated with Kaiser Permanente.