Sponsors (17)
The bill protects Medicare beneficiaries' choice by blocking automatic MA enrollments without a valid election, at the cost of added administrative complexity for governments and potential impacts on MA enrollment and insurer risk pools.
Medicare beneficiaries retain control over enrollment: the bill prevents beneficiaries from being automatically enrolled into Medicare Advantage (MA) plans without a valid election, preserving choice and preventing unintended plan switches.
Beneficiaries and agencies may face more paperwork and slower processes: the restriction could limit HHS's ability to streamline enrollments, increasing administrative burden and potential delays for beneficiaries and state agencies.
Medicare Advantage plans and providers could see enrollment and risk-pool impacts: lower automatic enrollment may reduce MA plan enrollment projections and alter insurer risk pools, affecting insurers and health systems' planning and finances.
Based on analysis of 2 sections of legislative text.
Prohibits HHS from using current-year appropriated funds to treat certain Medicare beneficiaries who did not make a required election as having elected a Medicare Advantage plan, except where already allowed by law.
Prohibits the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) from using funds already appropriated for the current fiscal year to treat a Medicare beneficiary (Part A and enrolled in Part B) who fails to make a specified election as if they had elected a Medicare Advantage (Part C) plan, except where existing law already permits such treatment. The restriction applies to funds made available by prior appropriations for obligation or expenditure in the current fiscal year and overrides other laws for that purpose.
Introduced November 18, 2025 by Mark Pocan · Last progress November 18, 2025