How Private Equity Gets Its Cut from Medicare Advantage

The report analyzes private equity's involvement in the multibillion-dollar Medicare Advantage sector, noting a peak in deal activity in 2021 followed by a slowdown due to interest rates and tighter regulations. It warns that private equity ownership in healthcare can lead to anticompetitive consolidation, fraud, and cost-cutting that harms patients and workers, and recommends policies such as joint liability for owners and increased regulatory scrutiny of deals.

• Private equity firms have actively invested in the Medicare Advantage ecosystem between 2016 and 2023, with a particular focus on the senior insurance distribution market, including brokerage and marketing firms. Deal activity peaked in 2021, which may have been influenced by regulatory rollbacks on marketing implemented by CMS during the Trump administration.
• Investment activity in the sector has decreased since 2021, a trend attributed to a shifting regulatory environment under the Biden administration—which includes tighter marketing regulations and proposed payment limits for brokers—as well as rising interest rates.
• Private equity ownership in healthcare presents systemic risks, including the potential for Medicare and Medicaid fraud, anticompetitive consolidation that increases costs, and the use of high debt levels that force cost-cutting at the expense of workers and patients.

APA

Private Equity Stakeholder Project (2024). How Private Equity Gets Its Cut from Medicare Advantage. https://pestakeholder.org/reports/how-private-equity-gets-its-cut-from-medicare-advantage/

Chicago

Private Equity Stakeholder Project. How Private Equity Gets Its Cut from Medicare Advantage. 2024. https://pestakeholder.org/reports/how-private-equity-gets-its-cut-from-medicare-advantage/.

Wikipedia

{{cite report |author=Private Equity Stakeholder Project |title=How Private Equity Gets Its Cut from Medicare Advantage |date=13 February 2024 |url=https://pestakeholder.org/reports/how-private-equity-gets-its-cut-from-medicare-advantage/ |access-date=23 October 2026 |via=Climate Insights Directory}}

BibTeX

@techreport{privateequitystakeholderproject2024how, author = {{Private Equity Stakeholder Project}}, title = {{How Private Equity Gets Its Cut from Medicare Advantage}}, institution = {Private Equity Stakeholder Project}, year = {2024}, month = feb, url = {https://pestakeholder.org/reports/how-private-equity-gets-its-cut-from-medicare-advantage/}, urldate = {2026-10-23}, note = {Indexed by Climate Insights Directory} }