How can MA plans offer extra benefits, charge little or nothing, even give rebates for food, etc. while still making a fair profit while saving Medicare money?
They can’t and they don’t … save Medicare money, that is, because Medicare over pays MA plans.
The thing is this is nothing new, it has been known for years and Congress did nothing. Insurers game the system to extract higher payments from Medicare based on the health of MA enrollees.
By Christopher Weaver
Throughout the past year, The Wall Street Journal investigated how UnitedHealth Group and other giant insurers extracted billions in extra payments from the $450-billion-a-year Medicare Advantage system, the federal government program that outsources health benefits to private companies.
Medicare Advantage plans should never receive a higher payment than the average cost of traditional Medicare beneficiaries. Medicare is supposed to be saving money.
Correcting this will likely mean higher premiums and/or less benefits in MA plans. And, it may also mean fewer MA plans.
QUINNSCOMMENTARY 
Note that Medicare Fee-for-Service tops the list of government programs ranked by improper payments at $31.7 billion for FY 2024. Medicare Advantage is third at $19.1 billion. A lot of money in either case but traditional Medicare has a problem that exceeds Medicare Advantage by 50 percent.
https://www.wsj.com/politics/policy/doge-musk-government-waste-spending-charts-109f3bcf?st=tRACTT&reflink=desktopwebshare_permalink
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