The Waiting Periods That Are Gone This Year

Medicare open enrollment runs from October 15 to December 7, and during those eight weeks more than 9,500 Medicare Advantage advertisements air every day, by one count drawn from regulator figures. In 2023 Medicare rejected roughly one in three of the television ads submitted to it for review, and about 80 percent of the rejected ones came from third-party marketing organizations rather than from the insurers themselves.

What changed this year is not the volume. It is the rulebook. A final rule published in April 2026, applicable to coverage starting January 1, 2027, removed several of the marketing restrictions that had been added in 2023, under a heading about reducing regulatory burden. Medicare described the change as removing restrictions on the time and manner by which beneficiaries can have conversations with licensed agents and brokers.

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What Came Off

Three things, each small on its own. The 48-hour waiting period between the moment a beneficiary signs a scope-of-appointment form and the moment a personal marketing appointment may take place is eliminated. The 12-hour waiting period between an educational event and a marketing event is eliminated. And the prohibition on marketing superlatives, words like best and most, unless the claim was documented, is rescinded.

A fourth change concerns the disclaimer brokers must read. State Health Insurance Assistance Programs, the free counseling services that exist in every state, are no longer among the resources that must be named, and the disclaimer may now be delivered later in a call rather than within the first minute.

Separately, a requirement that would have sent each enrollee a mid-year list of the extra benefits they had not yet used was delayed in September 2025 and then rescinded before a single notice was sent. The regulation it lived in no longer exists in the code. Medicare cited administrative burden and duplication with the annual coverage document.

The Mechanics of a Waiting Period

It is worth being precise about what those two intervals did, because they look like paperwork and were not. A scope-of-appointment form records which products a beneficiary has agreed to discuss. The 48-hour gap meant the agreement and the sales conversation could not happen in the same visit. A person who opened the door to someone offering to explain their options had two days before anyone could ask them to sign, and that interval is where a spouse gets consulted or a doctor's network gets checked.

The 12-hour rule did the same work at scale. An educational event is informational by regulatory definition and cannot be used to sell. The gap prevented a seminar at a community center from flowing directly into enrollment at the same tables, which is precisely the sequence the rule was written to interrupt.

Neither rule restricted what could be said. Both restricted when it could be said relative to the decision. Removing them changes no word of permitted content; it changes how much time sits between the first conversation and the signature.

What the Watchdogs Are Looking At

Federal investigators have been moving in the other direction. In December 2024 the inspector general issued a special fraud alert on marketing arrangements in Medicare Advantage, flagging payments that vary with the number of people enrolled, payments that vary with enrollees' demographics or health status, and payments to agents and brokers for steering patients toward particular providers.

In July 2025 the same office opened a study of misleading marketing practices, analyzing complaints filed with Medicare from 2020 through 2024, with a stated focus on the incentive structures that encourage brokers to change people's enrollments. Its concern, in its own words, is agents enrolling people without their knowledge or directing them to plans that substantially increase out-of-pocket costs. The study has not been published.

What the Market Looks Like Underneath

The sales pressure has an arithmetic cause. For 2027 the number of Medicare Advantage plans is roughly flat at about 5,532, but the average beneficiary now has 28 drug-inclusive plans to choose from rather than 32, options fell in 28 states, and twelve insurers that sold plans this year will sell none next year. The weighted average premium drops from 14.37 dollars to 12.00. Plans are competing harder for a membership base of 35.2 million people, more than half of everyone on Medicare.

The waiting periods were the only part of the rulebook that protected the decision rather than the disclosure, and they are the part that came off in the year when a tenth of the market has to move. Two habits cover most of the risk. Treat any appointment that arrives the same day as a reason to take the two days anyway, since nothing in the rule prevents a beneficiary from imposing the interval the regulation no longer imposes. And ask for the counseling program the disclaimer no longer has to mention, because it is free, it is in every state, and it is not paid on enrollment.

DISCLAIMER

The content in this email does not constitute an offer or solicitation to buy or sell any financial instrument. All commentary is general in nature and is not directed at any individual investor.

— John Stone