I will be 65 in Aug and have been having my mailbox stuff full of "give me a call for great insurance" "give me a call . I will help you through Medicare." As far as I have figured out: Part A Free Part B pays 80% of what Part A doesn't pay, but will cost about $137 a month. Medicare Supplement. Medicare Advantage. My wife's cost $114 per month. Help me through this. What do you old farts have? My wife has Medicare Advantage through United Health. They seem to pay about 98% of her med bills, but cost an addition $114 per month. That is probably what I will go with. Just wondering what all the other old farts have and how satisfied are you with the coverage?
Part A is hospital insurance. Part B is medical insurance. Part C is private sourced Part B (edit: and A and D ) (often called Advantage Plan) Part D is medicines or drug insurance. Part C is dependent on what is available in your state. You might have a dizzying array of zero cost (over the basic $137/mo ) and extra cost plans available to you. But it depends on what is available in your state and maybe part of state. It's important to sign up several months before you turn 65 as enrollment is not necessarily automatic . If you work for a large company with great group coverage then you can ignore medicare but see whoever handles your insurance coverage as they might still want you to enroll in an over-65 plan as that $137 could be available to them.
What billb3 said. If you don't sign up for D, there's a penalty. Since I was already signed up for SS, Medicare was automatic (don't know if that's true across the board). I chose an Advantage plan that includes D....a cheap one, since I didn't want to incur the penalty, and at the moment I'm not on any meds. I got a LARGE quantity of mail from a variety of health care companies before I signed up. Actually had a woman from one co. show up at our door on a "cold call".
You should also be deciding what you want to do about SS benefits if you've paid into it all these years and haven't done anything yet. There's a SS benefits thread with a lot of pros and cons for pre and post FRA considerations already.
Penalty for both Medicare and Part D if you don't sign up. That is one of the biggest rip-offs. My biggest gripe in all of this is the Part D. When it came out it was pretty good but we knew it was just a simple bandaid. The trouble is, as expected it gets worse from year to year. And for sure that is one you have to look at every year because it changes so much year to year. Since it came out we have changed companies every year but one. None has been totally satisfactory and last year was the worst ever...but this year might be even worse. For example, when it started there was just a monthly fee. Now there is a monthly fee (of course much higher) along with a deductible and higher prices for medicine. The prices vary a lot. They have what is called tier's of coverage. Tier 1 gives you the best prices, 2 higher, 3 higher yet and 4 out of this world... Guess what. Hardly any medicines get into tier 1. In addition, the insurance company thinks they know more than your doctor does and sometimes you have to go through a lot of bull to get the medicine you need. Some they will simply refuse to pay. One more thing they do is inflate the prices. For instance, my wife got a 90 day supply of one medicine they claim the insurance paid well over $400 for. Yet, you can actually buy that medicine over the counter and we figured it out. OTC we could buy it for over $100 less! But, at least they paid for it all but those prices just make it look like the company is doing something great in someone else's eyes. It is bull. On the other hand, we do not have any insurance other than through Medicare. Most times they pay enough so that it is a blessing for us. We have compared with several others we know that have the medicare advantage plans and in some cases it makes them look good but over all, we end up paying less than they do. In short, one has to look long and hard at these things and for sure they have you held tightly in that if you don't buy when you can, they will penalize you tremendously if you try to get it later.
I tried to edit out the parts that I wanted to comment on, but the whole posting is relevant. "penalty for both Medicare and Part D if you don't sign up. That is one of the biggest rip-offs." We found out about that one right off. When my wife turned 65 I was still working and had employer insurance. We didn't need Medicare. I will save the GVT some money. Wrong thought. The b*s***ds, socked a penalty of about $10 a month on her for late sign up. Now that isn't a one time penalty but a lifetime penalty. So much for being patriotic and trying to save the GVT some money. The more I hear, maybe signing up for Medicare Advantage may be a waste of money or at least not a good ROI. Medicare A, B and a D supplement.
I'm thinking of going with plan B and the VA, I'll probably go by the VA this week and get that going. I have until October on medicare.
The penalty is supposed to be what you would have paid in if you hadn't waited. In the end you'll be forking over the same amount of money either way. Medicare Advantage should be paying the part D. In many states The ADvantage Plans have many more benefits that the basic medicare plan for the same amount of money although they are often HMO or PPO type plans that your doctor may or not belong to. But your doctor may or may not accept medicare either. Tis why it's important to visit human resources dept. to find out what they recommend at 65. Keeping in mind you can get bad/wrong advice anywhere, including at the SS office. So always go to multiple sources for advice/opinions just like you should with investing hard earned dollars.
I have B & D, and United Healthcare Advantage like your wife, it pays most of my bills and bi-annual tests and prescriptions. Here in WY, there is only one provider to choose from, but previous home state had a full ledger page of choices. Some better than others regardless of price! In my previous state, my Advantage was 1/2 the price of other plans but covered more and was almost universal with providers unlike more expensive ones, like billb3 mentioned. I prefer to see some things on paper instead of trying to switch screens on the computer, they used to send out a couple "Welcome to Medicare" booklets. If you do prefer reading on paper, I found the SSA.gov is pretty handy, you can request copies of those booklets and all kinds of other info there and not have to wait on 1-800-we'reverybusy hold. All said above I would not trust emails, unless the SSA they are out to sell you something that might not be the best fit for you.
