Microsimulation modeling of Medicare policy reforms requires estimates of spending for all Medicare enrollees, but quality spending data for Medicare Advantage (MA) enrollees are not generally available. MA is a large and growing part of the Medicare program, however, having accounted for 34 percent of Medicare program spending in 2019. In this methods brief, we describe our approach to estimating county-level MA program spending and spending by MA enrollees using plan- and county-level data from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services. We generate our estimates in MCARESIM, the Urban Institute’s microsimulation model for estimating the effects of Medicare policy reforms. These estimates can be used as inputs for analyses of changes in Medicare policy.
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