05/21/2026
I am sharing this very insightful fb post - as it matters: by Amanda Brewton:
A recent JAMA, Journal of the American Medical Association study raises important questions about Medicare Advantage enrollment and broker compensation, but it misses a critical reality: for millions of beneficiaries, their agent is not just the person who submitted an application.
Independent Medicare Agents are often the only consistent human advocate a senior has in an incredibly complex healthcare system. We help beneficiaries understand how Medicare actually works with supplemental coverage, prescription drug plans, provider networks, prior authorizations, formularies, and out-of-pocket exposure.
We help when medications become unaffordable.
We help fix billing and claims errors.
We help navigate treatment access issues.
We help identify fraud, misleading marketing, and inappropriate enrollments.
We help families during some of the most stressful moments of their lives.
And contrary to how this issue is often framed, most Medicare business is not being written by massive call centers. The majority is still written by local agents sitting across kitchen tables, meeting clients face-to-face, answering calls year-round, and building relationships that last for decades.
Yes, oversight matters. Ethics matter. Accountability matters. Every industry needs that. But reducing broker compensation to a line item without evaluating the actual services agents provide and the problems they prevent creates an incomplete and frankly misleading narrative.
The Medicare system is complicated. Beneficiaries deserve trusted guidance. Good agents are not the problem. In many cases, they are the safeguard protecting seniors from confusion, financial harm, and fraud within an increasingly difficult system to navigate.
I welcome any regulator, legislator, research entity and the media to contact me to spend a few hours seeing what we do and how we do it. This is an open invitation and I know many other agents who would welcome the opportunity to share their experiences with you too. Chris Klomp John Brooks have both mentioned Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services is looking for more examples, we are willing and able to provide just that to you to help make the system better.
