Preparing
Medicare Advantage for Comprehensive Medicare Reform
The Heritage
Foundation
Medicare
Advantage (MA), a system of competing private health plans, ... a richer
set of benefits than traditional Medicare, at a reasonable cost.
Part
B Premiums: A Medicare Customer Question | ThinkAdvisor
ThinkAdvisor
They can enroll in a new Medicare Advantage program,
revert to their old one, keep the one they have, or swap out for a traditional Medicare
plan.
Annuity sales, helped by rising
interest rates, are surging. If current market conditions hold, fixed annuities,
fixed-indexed and registered index-linked annuities are predicted to compete
more fiercely with one another during the next 5 years.
Humana
will exit the employer-based insurance business over the next 18 to 24 months
to focus primarily on government-backed programs. They raised their forecast
for the MA program based on higher-than-anticipated sales and retention.
The Census Bureau found that the
population overall had higher income and slightly less poverty than previously
thought, thanks to a new analysis project, the National Experimental Wellbeing
Statistics.
CMS released its latest look at
enrollment in the MA program, which showed that nearly 30.9 million people had
enrolled in MA plans. In addition, 308,881 people are enrolled in commercial
Medicare-Medicaid plans, according to the data.
By Connor Smith |
Friday, February 24
Too
Hot. U.S. stocks
fell today after the Federal Reserve's preferred inflation gauge
showed the central bank's battle with rising prices is far from over.
The Dow Jones Industrial Average fell
1%. With a 3% drop on the week, the Dow has fallen for four straight weeks,
declining 3.4% over the span. This was the Dow's largest weekly decline since
Sept. 23.
The S&P 500 fell 1.1%, and 2.7%
on the week. The market benchmark has fallen in five of the past six trading
days and for three straight weeks. It was the index's worst week since Dec. 9.
The Nasdaq Composite fell 1.7%, bringing this week's
decline to 3.3%. That's also its worst week since Dec. 9.
Prompting the selloff was the core
personal-consumption expenditures price index, which rose 4.7% year over year
in January. Economists had forecast an increase of 4.3%. The core PCE increased
0.6% from Decemeber.
Barron's Megan Cassella writes
that reaccelerating consumer price growth is the latest sign that the economy
is defying the Fed's attempts to cool demand. Megan adds:
The data sent
stocks tumbling and sparked calls for a hefty half-point
interest-rate hike when the Fed meets again next month. The latest inflation
report also fueled further questions about why the economy has been able to
remain so hot nearly a year into the central bank’s most aggressive
monetary-policy tightening campaign in decades, defying widespread
expectations.
The simple answer is that the Covid-19
pandemic changed the economy in so many ways that the traditional rules no
longer apply. But the fuller explanation is more complicated. Here’s a look at
some of the reasons why interest-rate hikes haven’t yet had the negative impact
on the economy that both conventional wisdom and historical precedent would
suggest.
Barron's associate editor Randall
W. Forsyth writes
that inflation expectations have risen since Groundhog Day in early February.
That's come despite falling crude oil prices. Randy adds:
The year-over-year rise in
the CPI has receded from its four-decade peak over 9% last September, largely
because of declines in prices for goods. But services, which account for 61.8%
of the CPI and were climbing at a 7.6% annual clip through January, haven’t
peaked, [Bianco Research's James] Bianco says. This pattern is a virtual mirror
image of the 1965-69 inflationary cycle, he adds, citing data from his former
colleague, Ronald Griess of the Chart
Store.
That’s not a positive for fixed-income
investors. According to research by Paul H. Kupiec, a senior fellow at the
American Enterprise Institute, those who bought and held 10-year Treasury notes
from late 1963 to early 1973 were crushed by inflation. While the notes had a
positive real yield, based on the then most recent 12-month CPI readings, that
yield became negative as inflation went much higher over the notes’ 10-year
life.
Over the near term, Treasury yields have
significantly further to rise, even after their recent jump, according to
Bianco’s analysis. In every cycle, he finds, the two-year note’s yield tops out
above the eventual peak in the Fed’s funds rate target.
Randy notes that short-term Treasury bills
could serve as a hiding place for nervous investors, along with money-market
mutual funds, or short-term bonds.
A bond strategy report from BCA Research this
past week also recommended TIPS as providing an additional hedge over
conventional Treasuries. The 10-year TIPS break-even spread was priced on
Friday for CPI inflation of just 2.39% over the next decade, the low end of its
recent range of 2.3%-2.5%. Given what we’ve seen since Punxsutawney Phil popped
his head up, I’ll take the over on that inflation forecast.
Watch our
weekly TV show on Fox Business Saturday or Sunday at 10 a.m. or 11:30 a.m. ET.
This week, an interview with Michael Rogers, retired admiral and former
director of the National Security Agency, on the war in Ukraine. Plus, a look
at what's ahead for the housing market.
DJIA: -1.02% to 32,816.92
S&P 500: -1.05% to 3,970.04
Nasdaq: -1.69% to 11,394.94
The Hot Stock:
EQT +6.9%
The Biggest Loser: Autodesk -13.0%
Best Sector: Materials +0.7%
Worst Sector: Real Estate -1.9%
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