Musk/Trump Admin posts their claimed Dec 2024 Medicare enrollment data

The Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services just published updated enrollment data for Medicare, adding both December 2024 to the data archive.

This follows prior updates of October & November 2024 Medicare enrollment data, which suggests that the Musk/Trump Admin will continue to post updated enrollment data, at least for the time being.

Whether the data posted since January 20, 2025 is accurate or not, I can't say for certain, but at least they're updating it...and I don't see anything in the December update which leaps out at me as being an obvious red flag.

As of this writing, the same can't be said for the monthly Medicaid/CHIP enrollment reports, which are usually updated the same day as the Medicare reports, but which have remained stuck on October 2024 since before Trump was inaugurated in January.

In any event, according to the latest report, as of December 2024:

• Total Medicare beneficiaries are up to 68.36 million (up 66.4K since November)
• Traditional/FFM Medicare beneficiaries are at 33.95 million (up 66.8K)
• Medicare Advantage beneficiaries reached 34.42K (up 1.6K)
• 11.93 million Medicare enrollees were "Dual Eligibles"...that is, enrolled in both Medicare and Medicaid.

At first glance, the only thing which surprises me here is that traditional (FFS) Medicare grew substantially more than Medicare Advantage for the second month in a row, which is interesting given the steady trend of Advantage plans gaining market share for years. MA is still over the 50% threshold, however, at 50.3% of total Medicare enrollment.

It's also worth noting that, given the Musk/Trump Admin's obsession with erasing any reference or data regarding gender, race or ethnicity, this first Medicare enrollment report still includes a breakout of those demographic factors.