> On the other hand, patient satisfaction correlates with increased rates of hospitalization, higher expenses, and increased mortality. You'd want to dig a little deeper than patient satisfaction before drawing any conclusions regarding medicare vs. medicare advantage, I would think.

I didn't in my previous comment, because we were talking about the overall public perception, which may or may not be connected to the tangible metrics that we actually want a healthcare system to focus on.

As it turns out, though, Medicare Advantage also consistently outperforms Original Medicare on medical outcomes, and it comes in under-budget for identical coverage. Medicaid options vary much more (and they're different in every state, because Medicaid is administered at the state level), but the equivalent private plans for Medicaid coverage also typically perform much better than the public ones.

Hacker News readers aren't generally in the demographic for Medicare[0], but for anyone who is: there's really no reason to use Original Medicare. Every jurisdiction should have Medicare Advantage plans that cost you the same amount as Original Medicare does, and your experience (and overall care) will be vastly improved.

[0] people over the age of 65, or people of any age who are on dialysis for more than two years, etc.