We just finished with our first Medicare open enrollment

[Omaha Steve]

We survived. We know a salesman for a broker. It is nice to do business with somebody we know and trust. He has done this for years and has a great reputation.

We have been getting bombarded with calls and snail mail from all kinds of companies with offers.

OS

[SamKnause]

1. What advise did they give you ???

What plan did they suggest.

I haven't tackled open enrollment yet.

[Omaha Steve]

4. It took a little over an hour

We got Medico plan G and drug part D. Only one of my meds wasn't covered and we will use Good RX for it.

[SamKnause]

5. Thank you.

I helped my mother years ago choose her plan.

I think that meeting took about an hour.

[murielm99]

2. We go to the senior center nearby

and sit down with a person from the department of aging. He or she looks at our medications list and compares companies and pharmacies. We sign up with the one that is most affordable and meets our needs.

I get my Medicare D through the local pharmacy. The company is Mutual of Omaha. My husband has a different company and plan.

I, too, am tired of all the calls and mail. It is nice to get some help from people who have no stake in what company or plan you choose.

Others here may want to see what their senior centers offer for guidance. You sound like you are all set!

[Sherman A1]

3. You will get bombarded with mail

Every year, just expect it.

[doc03]

6. I have been on Medicare for 11 years and can't

understand what plan is best. I pay for a BCBS Medicare advantage plan, only because our union negotiates for it. I hear these ads that you can get free dental, vision and hearing aids for no premium. I pay $125 a month and get none of that. I talked to a salesperson from Humana a couple years ago and she said she could not match what I get. But Jimmy JJ Walker says everything is free? Her Medicare supplements were far more than I pay and you still have to buy a drug plan. I have a maximum out of pocket of $1000/$3400 and the best she had was I think
$6700 but Joe Nemith says it's all free?????????????

[sarcasmo]

8. Dyno-Mite

[ProfessorGAC]

11. $125/Month

Is that on top of the deduction from SSI?
If so, that's not bad. I pay $158 and another $54 for Part D.
And, because of income, they're deducting an extra $59 from my SSI, in addition to the normal amount.
Admittedly, my A/B supplemental is a higher end policy.
We pay extra for a private dental plan because the dentist 2 blocks from our house takes those plans. The convenience is worth something to us.

[LetMyPeopleVote]

7. I am getting a dozen calls a day on enrollment

[MineralMan]

9. In the end, just about every way of handling Medicare ends up with

a decent result. There are details, but the basics are pretty simple.

What I do is find a plan that works for me and then stick with it until it disappears for some reason. I just basically roll over the coverage I had in the past year and throw all of the competing offers in the trash.

It might not seem to make sense, but it does, in its own strange way.

Right now, I'm on an Advantage plan where I pay $78 per month and have very small co-pays, plus some extra benefits. It's from Aetna, which acquired Allina health, the system I've been in for over 17 years. It's a major healthcare system in my metro area, with plenty of hospitals, clinics, specialists, etc. Same day appointments, pretty much for primary care and my clinic is a multi-specialty clinic, so if my doc wants me to see a cardiologist, I see one in the same clinic, right near my home.

So far, so good. I still pay my Medicare Part B premium, which they also end up getting.

I'm not into stressing over my choice for Medicare coverage. So, I don't.

[Jilly_in_VA]

10. I refuse

to go Medicare Advantage. I refuse to have my choices limited and to have a private company bill the government MORE for services (which they do). I stick with plain vanilla Medicare and get a pretty basic Part D. The whole thing pisses me off. We should have a National Health Plan, but because of the selfishness of the AMA, Big Pharma, and Big Insurance, we can't.

[ProfessorGAC]

12. We Both Have Supplementals

Not Advantage plans.
They're essentially PPOs, so there's no restrictive networking. Can go to any doctor for any reason.
They cost more than Advantage plans, though.

[wackadoo wabbit]

13. Yes, yes, yes!

I'm always amazed at DUers who willingly go with Medicare Advantage plans. Do they not know that Medicare Advantage was devised as a way of privatizing Medicare? Do they not know that Medicare Advantage is not true Medicare, that it's private health insurance?

Newt Gingrich once said about original Medicare, "“We believe it’s going to wither on the vine because we think people are voluntarily going to leave it — voluntarily.”

Medicare Advantage plans were devised to enable that to happen.

Here, don't take my word for it:

https://www.commondreams.org/views/2021/09/08/medicare-advantage-profit-scam-time-end-it
https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/03/medicare-advantage-nudging-aside-old-medicare/
https://www.forbes.com/sites/forbesfinancecouncil/2021/02/24/why-are-medicare-advantage-plans-so-heavily-advertised/
https://www.statnews.com/2019/04/03/medicare-advantage-nudging-aside-old-medicare/ (read to the end)

I will never use a Medicare Advantage plan. I love regular Medicare, and I don't want to see it destroyed.

[leftstreet]

14. Those are great links

Good stuff

[wackadoo wabbit]

16. Thanks!

I'm glad you found them meaningful!

I think I'm going to turn it into an OP. I fear that most people won't see the info, buried as it is here in the responses, and I feel that this info really should be more widely known.

[Ron Green]

15. One risk pool is a health care system. Multiple risk pools is an investment scheme.

We have enough investment schemes in this country; we need a health care system.