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I have a problem with Medigap, advantage plans, and prescription drug plans. Too many choices, trying to differentiate. Definitely, not enough knowledgeable people to sort these plans out. I don't have the experience or patience to go through pages of pamphlets to decide what is best for a ninety seven year old. That is my biggest gripe. Other than that, Medicare is great!
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If you are caring for a ninety-seven year old, how much more time do you think there will be before he passes away?
Unless you want a large hospital bill left for you to pay then I would suggest Plan F as a supplement to Medicare A and B .
It is the most comprehensive plan in the bunch. It covers just about everything, including the remaining 20% which is your supplemental plan, a medigap plan.
So you should have Medicare Part A ( hospital care ),
Medicare Part B ( Docotors ), and now Plan F inside the Supplemental Plan. You may also consider Medicare Part D ( Drugs and Medicines).
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With nine years of being a medicare patient, I have been very satisfied with the coverage and the supplemental plan, which for a cost of currently $108.00 a month covers medications and other out of pocket expenses.
Personally so far I have never reached the donut hole, even though I need about 7 prescription medications. With careful reseach and Dr co-operation these are all generics which cost $4-5 a month.My husband is not so lucky and spends about four months year in the donut hole using some very expensive drugs. I worked till age 68 so continued with my employers plan as my secondary insurance
Medicare is manatory as the primary insurance after age 65 but if you are still employed you can stay on the employers plan to pick up the 20% not covered by medicare.It may be cheaper to purchase a suplemental plan depending on your contribution to the employer.
It is a maze out there but organizations like AARP and local ageing agencies can help. Insurance companies often conduct seminars close to enrollment time and we found this the most helpful in choosing a plan. This is an insurance plan and like all insurance you have to read the fine print which is a hassle and may be beyond some individuals abilities. In this care ask for help from someone you know or a relative. Ask questions of the company, they often have a nurse hot line. Naturally they are in the business of selling policies but in this case there are limitations and you can change your mind every 12 months.
In our case we have a plan available through Blue Cross and several others but I am familiar with B/C. They provide four levels of coverage which are all good and premiums range from $0 - $108 per person per month. The lower the premium the higher the co-pay but even then it is afforable.
Like anything associated with the government they seem unable to make it simple.
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Well, you gotta have it. So there. They take the payments out of your S.S. check on the fourth Wednesday of every month so you don't "feel" it. If you can get supplemental insurance that picks up the additional 20% that Medicare doesn't cover, then you are home free as far as healthcare insurance is concerned.
I have no comment on Medicare for children.
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I am a Canadian and was FORTUNATE enough to be in my early 20's when medicare was introduced in Canada. I have benefitted for more than 40 years from medicare. I know what it was like before there was medicare. When I was very young, my father, who was a farmer, became very ill and spent many weeks in a hospital. There was no medicare in Canada then so for years my parents had to gradually pay off the debt of hospital bills and doctor bills. There were also many times we should have seen a doctor after that but did not because it would have cost too much. We managed to live but we would have been far better off if we as children had been taken to a doctor. But unless we were close to death, because my parents were poor, we stayed away from doctors. The same applied to my grandparents. I know my grandmother would have lived longer if she had felt she could have afforded to receive more medical treatment in her late 60's. MEDICARE IS A BLESSING. Of course it can be abused and overused and THIS is what can ruin it for everyone. If safeguards are established so that at least 90% of the time, there is no abuse of the medicare system, Americans will be on to something wonderful. It strikes me that in a Christian country (which I believe Americans claim the United States of America is) questioning the need for medicare is preposterous. Don't Christians believe in being their brothers' keepers? Medicare is the fairest way of doing this as far as health is concerned. Of course it will cost money but look what is being spent by Americans every day on booze, tobacco, recreation and, of course, the present wars. The problem with most of us that don't live at a third country level is that we want to pay as little as possible for the things we NEED so that we have more money for the things we DON"T NEED. Go figure!!!
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gnsarg, you are correct. Navigating through the maze supplemental insurance is tough.There's so much information it quickly becomes overwhelming. Take a look at this article about supplemental insurance options. I hope it helps!

https://www.agingcare.com/133610
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My mom just went thru an episode where she was hospitalized in ER one day, then transferred for 9 days to a behavioral hospital stay. Thats 10 days! The total bill so far has been $40K for the ten days!!! I was floored. God bless Medicare and Anthem (supplemental) because they covered 80% of it! People can gripe all they want; but even the supplemental is $264/mo for her -- thats still out of reach for alot of seniors with additional expenses. Lets face it; we are all living longer and medicine has allowed us to live longer with long term ailments - especially dementia, ALZ, stroke and other challenges that eat into all our savings.

I say keep Medicare -- but we have to get a handle on it and everyone (younger) needs to start ponying up more in a medical savings account or contribute more to Medicare (social security, whatever) to account for the likely long lives they will have in the future. Everyone in their 40s or younger needs to get a Long Term Care policy.

Children are on Medicaid - and there still is a strong need for that and it won't get better.

Yes; there is some abuse of both systems, but we need to work through it; establish more checks and balances and eliminate much of the adminstrative costs.

I hear alot of folks -- particularly seniors acting like "every man for himself" with no regard for those of us and their grandchildren coming up behind them that will not have the same Medicare benefits in their golden years -- it just isn't sustainable if seniors continue to live well into their 90s/100s and are on medicare for 30 or more years. My mother has been retired longer than she worked.
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Every day I am grateful that Medicare and Medicaid exists to enable my mom to have her needs taken care of in a NH. Prior to Medicaid, my mom was on a federal BCBS secondary plan with no copay for everything that Medicare didn't.

Will the current system be there in the future? I doubt it. The cost of health care is at the tipping point in US within the next decade where it will smother the economy. Obamacare didn't go far enough imho. A nationalized system is what is needed. Does it have it's problems, yeah sure. But there would be no more your surgery costing 40K and my surgery costing 14K issues. Probably there is no way that is ever going to happen in the US because of lobbyists of the health care industry.

Currently earned income in excess of $ 113,700 is entirely exempt from the 6.2 payroll tax that funds SS benefits (although employers pays a matching 6.2%). Medicare is financed by a flat 1.45% tax on the first 200K/250K single / married which is matched by the employer. Above that it only goes up .9%. Not 9% but point 9% = .9%. Like why bother? Changing both to increase as income increases would solve the upcoming crisis in funding SS (& therefore Medicaid) & Medicare. Make it a progressive tax rather than a regressive tax which it is currently.

I think it's like 10,000 baby boomers turn 65 every day and about half do not have a defined benefit pension plan. Getting old in America is not going to be pretty.
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