The Biden administration on Monday proposed new regulations on Medicare Advantage plans aimed at improving competition between plans and strengthening access to supplementary care services.

"People with Medicare deserve to have accurate and unbiased information when they make important decisions about their health coverage," Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services Administrator Chiquita Brooks-LaSure said in a press statement. "Today’s proposals further our efforts to curb predatory marketing and inappropriate steering that distorts healthy competition among plans."

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As of March, nearly 66 million people are enrolled in Medicare, an increase of almost 100,000 from Sept. 2022. Nearly 32 million residents are enrolled in Medicare Advantage plans, which are plans offered by private insurers and paid for by the federal government.

Under the proposed rule, large insurance plans would be constrained in the amount of compensation that they could provide to brokers or agents of Medicare Advantage, limiting bonus arrangements outside of existing regulations. CMS intends to close loopholes that result in what the administration calls "anti-consumer steering incentives."

The proposal would set the fixed compensation rate for agents or brokers to $632 per plan, rather than the existing $601, to "eliminate the current variability in payments and improve the predictability of compensation for agents and brokers."

"Keeping healthcare costs low and competitive means preventing anti-competitive actors from deceiving seniors and people with disabilities and from playing fast and loose with marketing rules," Department of Health and Human Services Secretary Xavier Becerra said in a press briefing.

Senior Biden administration officials told reporters that Monday's regulations are part of the broader "Bidenomics" agenda as the administration seeks to lower healthcare costs while expanding coverage.

CMS is also proposing regulations to increase access to behavioral healthcare and additional treatment providers under Medicare Advantage plans. The addition includes marriage and family therapists, mental health counselors, addiction medicine clinicians, opioid treatment advisers, and others into CMS's Medicare Advantage network adequacy requirements.

The Biden administration has taken a strong stance on improving access to mental health, including strengthening the requirement for private insurance to cover mental health counseling and addiction treatment.

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The proposed regulation also requires Medicare Advantage plans to send personalized statements to each enrollee as a midyear update on what supplemental services are available to use under their plan until the end of the year. This includes traditional benefits, such as vision and hearing, as well as new mental health benefits.

"More and more federal dollars are being used for supplemental benefits," Brooks-LaSure said in a press meeting. "CMS wants to make sure that these offerings are not just being used to attract enrollees."