I often hear the following from someone going Medicare who in the past has cared or currently is caring for a parent or other family member:
“My <mother, father, aunt> had a Plan F Medicare Supplement and it covered everything and that is what I want.”
I understand that point of view completely. There is no better frame of reference for what any us of can expect with our health in the future than what we have seen or see with our parents or other older loved ones.
Charles Bradshaw
With a Plan F Medicare Supplement, our older loved ones can go to any doctor or hospital anywhere in the country that accepts Medicare – as almost all do – and all of their costs are covered 100 percent.
My mother, who will be 98 in November, has a Plan F Medicare Supplement from AARP. When she had a full hip replacement a few years ago she did not have to pay one cent for any part of the procedure or rehabilitation. This included the three days she spent in the hospital and the six weeks she spent in a rehabilitation facility.
However, Congress passed a law in 2015 that makes a Plan F Medicare Supplement no longer the right choice for someone going on Medicare today.
The law Congress passed in 2015 begins to phase out Plan F Medicare Supplements beginning in 2020. Specifically, it says no one who becomes eligible for Medicare beginning on January 1, 2020 can enroll in a Plan F Medicare Supplement.
Anyone who currently has a Plan F Medicare Supplement at that time will be able to keep it. However, because younger people will not be able to join them in Plan F, the overall group of people who have Plan F Medicare Supplements will gradually become older and have a higher level of health issues than other Medicare Supplement plans.
For example, by 2025, everyone in a Plan F Medicare Supplement will be 70 years old or older. By 2030, everyone in a Plan F Medicare Supplement will be 75 years old or older.
By comparison, at both of these points in time other Medicare Supplements such as Plan G will have people who are 65 years old and older.
The younger overall mix in other Medicare Supplements such as Plan G will mean the average health care costs per person, and therefore monthly premiums, will be less in other Medicare Supplements than in Plan F.
This will cause premiums for people with Plan F to increase at a much higher rate in the future than other Medicare Supplement plans.
An excellent alternative to Plan F that will not increase in premiums as much because of the change in the law is Plan G. A Plan G Medicare Supplement provides the exact same coverage as Plan F except the policyholder pays Medicare’s once-a-year Part B deductible which is $185 in 2019.
Because Plan G’s premiums are usually at least $40 per month less than Plan F, the savings one receives in the lower monthly premium over 12 months with Plan G more than pays for the once-a-year $185 Part B deductible.
Very importantly, Plan G is the only Medicare Supplement other than Plan F that covers Medicare Part B Excess charges. Medicare Part B Excess charges are the up to 15 percent extra some medical providers charge for people with Medicare.
Because of this, I recommend Plan G instead of Plan F for anyone now going on Medicare. In addition, I strongly recommend anyone who currently has a Plan F Medicare Supplement who can switch to Plan G do so.
You do not have to wait until Medicare’s Annual Enrollment Period in October to change Medicare Supplements. You can change Medicare Supplements at any time during the year though if you have been on Medicare more than 6 months your ability to change will depend on your health situation.
At Medicare Answer Center we appreciate the privilege of assisting you with learning about your Medicare options so you can make the right permanent Medicare decision.
Simply click the following link to schedule a free, no-obligation 30-minute Medicare consultation.
There is only one acceptable answer to this question and that answer is “you.”
However, if you make the wrong decision about how to receive your Medicare, your health could be managed by an insurance company’s budget analyst often more concerned about the profits of his employer than your best health outcome.
When you first go on Medicare – usually at age 65 but often later if you are still working – you can choose to receive your Medicare benefits through regular Medicare combined with a Medicare Supplement and a Medicare Part D drug plan.
Or, you can instead assign your Medicare benefits to a private, for-profit, restricted-choice Medicare Advantage plan such as Humana Gold Plus or Kaiser Permanente.
When you choose to stay with regular Medicare,
Charles Bradshaw
you can go to any doctor or hospital anywhere in the country that accepts Medicare as almost all do. This includes such noted medical facilities as Mayo Clinic, Johns Hopkins, M.D. Anderson and Cancer Treatment Centers of America.Importantly, with regular Medicare combined with a Medicare Supplement, all or almost all of your costs are covered 100 percent regardless of your health situation now or in the future.
This scenario allows you, along with the doctors you choose, to make the best decisions for your health.
On the other hand, if you choose to receive your Medicare through a private, for-profit restricted-access Medicare Advantage plan, your health care decisions are often made by a budget analyst who is more focused on managing the costs of your care than working to deliver the best health outcome for you.
With a Medicare Advantage plan, you have a limited choice of doctors and hospitals and you are not fully covered when you travel.
Even worse, because a Medicare Advantage plan is focused on its own profits, it will often say “no” to treatments and tests your doctor may think is right for you when regular Medicare would have said “yes.”
A Medicare Advantage plan can even say “no” to a cancer treatment most likely to save your life and require you to take a less expensive but less effective treatment.
With today’s internet, you have access to a wealth of information about your health and the health care providers you can choose with regular Medicare. You have more control and input into the decisions about your health than any generation before.
You should never give up this benefit by assigning your Medicare benefits to a private, for-profit, restricted-choice Medicare Advantage plan.
At Medicare Answer Center we appreciate the privilege of assisting you with learning about your Medicare options so you can make the right permanent Medicare decision.
Simply click the following link to schedule a free, no-obligation 30-minute Medicare consultation.
When I started helping people with Medicare more than ten years ago, I was dismayed at how many people did not fully understand their Medicare options when they first went on Medicare.
Importantly, they did not understand the potential negative consequences on their access to health care and their finances from making a poor Medicare choice.
Finally, far too many people going on Medicare did not understand that the initial choice they made about their Medicare could become a permanent choice they could not change if they had or developed health issues.
I started Medicare Answer Center with the goal of helping as many people as possible fully understand how Medicare works and what their options were with Medicare. By fully understanding their choices, more people could make a better choice and receive better access to health care when they needed it most and not be financially disrupted by thousands of dollars in unplanned if and when they became sick.
Charles Bradshaw
At Medicare Answer Center, we take a very different approach than the thousands of high-pressure Medicare sales people who bombard you with unwanted phone calls when you are turning 65.
We provide helpful information about Medicare without asking for your telephone number.
We will only contact you if you request and schedule a no-obligation appointment with us.
Most important, we are not desperate for you to enroll with us. In fact, we only enroll about half of the people we help.
The reason for this is many people already have the coverage that is their best health insurance option and we will tell them this.
We also will continue to help you after you have started Medicare whether that means answering questions you may have or helping you change your Medicare Part D drug plan if your medication needs change.
This is not the case with the Medicare sales people who call you from high-pressure call centers. If you enroll with a high-pressure Medicare call center you are likely to never talk with your agent again.
At Medicare Answer Center we appreciate the privilege of assisting you with learning about your Medicare options so you can make the right permanent Medicare decision.
Simply click the following link to schedule a free, no-obligation 30-minute Medicare consultation.
During this time of year, you see what seems like non-stop television advertising trying to persuade you to enroll in a for-profit, restricted access, Managed Care Medicare Advantage plan.
One of the companies that seems to spend the most is Humana touting its “All-In-One” Medicare Advantage plan.
After a while, it becomes obvious these companies must be making a lot of money off of their for-profit, managed-care Medicare plans to be able to spend so many millions of dollars advertising them.
These plans are very profitable for these companies at the expense of your health and financial well-being.
It is important that you understand how Managed Care plans work with Medicare.
Medicare consists of two primary parts – Medicare Parts A and B.
Charles Bradshaw
Medicare Part A pays most of the costs if you are an in-patient in the hospital or a rehabilitation patient in a Skilled Nursing Facility.
Medicare Part B pays around 80 percent of the cost for most other health care services such as doctor’s visits, outpatient services, x-rays, lab work, physical therapy and sophisticated diagnostic testing such as MRIs.
When you have Medicare Parts A and B as your primary, the government pays your health care costs. With this coverage, you can go to any doctor or hospital that accepts Medicare as almost all do.
With Medicare Parts A and B as your primary insurance you can also get a Medicare Supplement that covers all or almost all of your share of Medicare which is around 20 percent.
This is wonderful coverage that gives you the best chance for the best health outcome possible if you have a serious health situation.
Unfortunately, for-profit companies such as Humana want you to forsake this wonderful coverage and sign your Medicare benefits over to them.
If you enroll in the for-profit Managed Care plans Humana advertises so much – also called Medicare Replacement or Medicare Advantage plans – the government no longer pays your medical bills and instead sends around $800 per month to Humana to pay your medical bills.
Humana in turn requires you to only use their network of doctors and hospitals as well as requiring you to contribute in most situations up to $6,700 per year for the cost of your care if you become sick.
But this is not the worst part of this scheme.
If you sign your Medicare benefits over to Humana, Humana will decide what medical care they will cover. And they often will say “no” to expensive care in order to spend as little as possible on your care and maximize their profits.
You see, Humana gets the $800 per month from the government whether they spend it on your care or not. And most of whatever they do not spend they keep as net income which goes toward exorbitant executive salaries and bonuses.
In 2017 Humana made $2.4 billion dollars as a company and most of that money came from profits from the Medicare Advantage program.
All of these profits from Humana’s Medicare Advantage scheme came from spending less and providing less health services for its members than those members would have received on average had they stayed on regular Medicare.
You see, what “Managed Care” Medicare – or Humana’s “All-In-One Medicare” – really means is managing your care to spend less so a big insurance company can make a lot more money.
You have worked hard all of your life to pay into a Medicare system that promises to give you the best chance for the best health outcome without forcing you to spend thousands or tens of thousands of dollars in unexpected costs if you become sick.
You should never give up this hard-earned benefit to enroll in a Medicare Advantage plan that will increase profits at a big insurance company at the expenses of your financial well-being and your health.
At Medicare Answer Center we appreciate the privilege of assisting you with learning about your Medicare options so you can make the right permanent Medicare decision.
Simply click the following link to schedule a free, no-obligation 30-minute Medicare consultation.
