Under current Medicare rules, Medicare beneficiaries who do not make a choice between traditional Medicare (TM) and Medicare Advantage (MA) are defaulted into TM. As outlined in a recent CMA Issue Brief: “Retiree Auto Enrollment in Medicare Advantage: Not Increasing, Still Problematic” (March 2026), Medicare does allow some employers and unions to automatically enroll their retirees into MA plans with which they contract.
The Center for Medicare Advocacy is concerned about efforts to expand such auto-enrollment into MA plans. As discussed in a previous CMA Alert (May 8, 2025), last year MarketWatch published an article titled “Opinion: Trump could saddle seniors with a costly Medicare Advantage plan — whether they like it or not” by Andrea Ducas (Center for American Progress) and David Lipschutz (Center for Medicare Advocacy) (May 6, 2025). The article outlined the dangers of implementing a Project 2025 proposal to make Medicare Advantage the default enrollment for beneficiaries, along with other efforts to push people towards MA and away from traditional Medicare.
Now, almost a year later, the Trump Administration is publicly stating that it is exploring this policy proposal. According to a STAT News article titled “Automatic enrollment in Medicare Advantage plans under consideration, top Trump health official says” by Tara Bannow (March 20, 2026):
President Trump’s Medicare director said Thursday his team is considering a policy that would automatically enroll Medicare beneficiaries into Medicare Advantage plans, a controversial idea that was touted in the conservative Project 2025 policy blueprint.
The article explains that the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) is “mulling the feasibility of models that would either automatically enroll beneficiaries into the private form of Medicare or accountable care organizations” according to CMS’ Medicare director. The article notes that “[a]ny such move could be a major win for the health insurance industry, which has seen Medicare crack down on the Medicare Advantage program in recent years, compromising its profits.” Relatedly, there is a bill that was introduced in the current session of Congress (H.R. 3467) that would change the default enrollment to MA, with an opportunity to opt-out, and would mandate that once people are enrolled in an MA plan, they would be unable to disenroll or switch plans for three years. The Center for Medicare Advocacy strongly opposes such administrative and legislative efforts and urges policymakers to both strengthen and keep traditional Medicare as the default.
March 26, 2026 – D. Lipschutz