Unlike most private health insurance plans and Medicare Advantage, traditional Medicare does not include an annual cap on what beneficiaries can spend on deductibles, copayments and coinsurance. "Aligning Traditional Medicare with Medicare Advantage spending caps may sound like a reasonable idea on the surface, but I also see it as another step toward privatization," Thompson told Newsweek. Over the past decade, Medicare Advantage enrollment has nearly doubled, growing from 18 million people in 2017 to 35 million in 2026. The proposed cap would place traditional Medicare on more equal footing with Medicare Advantage by providing similar protections against catastrophic costs. "Medicare Advantage is the path toward privatizing Medicare, a primary goal of the right."