What's with the Part D coverage? Our monthly premium is going from $30.10 per month this year

[shraby]

apiece to $50.50 apiece for 2014. And all we take are generic meds. Keeps going like this, and we will be underwater from insurance premiums..Part D and for the medicare gap coverage.
It will run over 5 thousand by the end of next year just for 1 years premiums. They making old people pay more to help pad their pockets when Obamacare becomes the lay of the land?

Edited to clarify.

[Control-Z]

1. How does $50.50 a piece

add up to over $5,000.00 a year? I don't understand.

[shraby]

3. The Part D plus the medigap insurance added together for the two of us.

[Control-Z]

7. Your medigap insurance must be astronomical!

If together your Part D comes to a little over $1,200.00 a year, then your medigape would be more than $150.00 each or over $300.00 combined a month.

I had no idea medicare/medigape was so expensive. I thought medigape was a secondary policy that picked up what medicare didn't cover?

I guess I don't understand how it works.

[shraby]

8. The medigap we have covers all..no co-pays, no deductibles, no out of area,

any doctor we want to go to. I'm old enough I don't want to deal with any "no's" when it comes time to pay the hospital/doctor/tests, etc.

[shraby]

9. To add to the above, the policy started out real reasonable, but goes up every year. Nothing EVER

goes down of course, but much more of this and we'll have to find something else.
Time Obama took a look at what the senior citizens are facing.

[Control-Z]

11. So medigape costs more than primary medicare insurance?

I was under the impression that kind of policy was significantly less.

[BlueToTheBone]

18. All our health insurance cost us $600 a month

that includes Part A&B plus supplemental and prescription. It's a lot.

[shraby]

17. Many of the medigap policies have copays, deductibles all on the 20% that medicare doesn't cover.

[HockeyMom]

2. I opted out of both Part C and Part D

and only signed up for B to please my family. I keep getting phone calls from SS saying that I might be eligible for "help" with Part D. All the meds I have taken in the past year are about 6 Tylenol. I think I can afford a bottle of 24 Tylenol every few years. They are just looking to make money. Health care is the biggest money making scheme, as far as I am concerned.

[shraby]

4. Problem is, we both have had a stroke. Another one and we could be on expensive meds and

expensive tests up the wazoo pronto, so we really need to carry the coverage.
Mr. Shraby has a small pension plus our SS, but how do people pay for Part D with just SS, and there are many on just SS. The coverage goes up much more and we will be hard pressed to pay for it and still pay our other bills.

[Egalitarian Thug]

12. Aside from holding political office, of course. n/t

[truedelphi]

5. Don't forget - 500 BILLONS of dollars were shaved from the MediCare budget

in order to make the ACA palatable to its critics.

That money has to come from somewhere.

[shraby]

6. That money was culled from fraud and abuse of the system.

[alc]

14. they couldn't provide specifics

The wouldn't say "if ACA fails to pass we will still reduce the cost by that amount". But somehow, if ACA would pass they claimed would be able to find that amount of fraud and abuse. (yes, it was asked in those terms)

Savings also come from streamlining the medical care process and setting up nation-wide IT systems to help doctors and hospitals coordinate. That one always seemed more real to me than the "fraud and abuse" claim.

Supposedly there's also "fraud and abuse" in food stamps. Are all of the ACA supporters calling for savings there? Studies suggest the amounts are about the same percentage in all programs (nowhere near $100s of billions for medicare but if you believe it there you should also believe it for food stamps). If the ACA claim isn't real, seniors will be paying for the "mis-statement".

[truedelphi]

15. Very good points you make. Also,

there was the idea that the health cre providers for MediCare patients could expect to get less in form of payments from the government, a very bad idea.

Way back in the early 1990's, doctors were retiring rather than trying to deal with MediCare payments. Make those payments smaller still, and doctors for the nation's seniors will be few and far between.

[enlightenment]

10. You might want to read this blog

she seems to explain it pretty well (and the answer to your question is "yes, they are raising your rates&quot .

http://www.timegoesby.net/weblog/2012/09/large-medicare-part-d-premium-increases-for-2013.html

Edit: I know she's talking from last year - but it looks like the same thing has happened, wouldn't you say?

[RebelOne]

13. I do not have Part D or gap coverage.

I already pay $105 per month out of my SS check. And $105 out of $1400 does not leave a lot to live on.

[shraby]

16. The main huge problem as I see it, is those in Washington with all the lawyers on God's green earth

at their disposal/beck and call as well as being lawyers themselves are writing laws concerning our health care for us oldsters to try to understand...in governmentese.
#1. I don't want to have to wade thru any multiple choice tests anymore.
#2. I want single payer health care period.
#3. I want to enjoy my elder years and not play their games once a year that usually makes less money for me to enjoy and more
money for insurance companies to enjoy..they already have plenty and I don't.