Posted on 10/16/2015 6:39:36 AM PDT by oh8eleven
Ok thanks. I saw that but wasn’t sure what medicare advantage was. That is awful.
Some of these premiums, evidently, depend on the state you live in. I had a supplement before leaving North Carolina that was about $160 monthly. After moving to Florida, I get Medicare Advantage for $0. Some plans down here even rebate part of your Medicare premium. Go figure.
We've never paid a dime to any medical providers in the three years we've been on Medicare -- and believe me we've had some pricey procedures in that time.
Given the fact that before we hit 65, our crappy high-deductible plan was running about 12K annually, we consider this setup a bargain.
We go to anyplace or any doc, without referral or approval, so long as that provider accepts Medicare.
Definitely, we have Part D -- we attended a little Medicare seminar shortly before hitting 65 and learned the not-so-well known fact that if you don't start up with Part D right away, you'll get penalized for every year you hadn't bought coverage, when you finally do.
Since our meds are virtually nil, we went with a 'bookmarker' - the cheapest Humana/Walmart plan on the books. If we end up needing pricey PX's, then we'll look into a switch .
They told me when I called SS, it was because congress changed the rules, I had expected it to go full regular at 65 and it did not: 66 was when I went full regular. http://www.ssa.gov/oact/progdata/nra.html was the age for those born in 1948. I’d been on disability since I turned 60. Took 4 yrs to get it through, most of my paper trail was lost when my Rheumatologist retired.
We are a older blended couple of widowers, we even had to wait until I turned 60 before we could get married, or I’d lose the SS I drew under my late husband’s. I didn’t have enough quarters in on my own, so I drew off his;ate husband’s account. He died of a sudden massive heart attack at 57. They kept what little I’d paid in. Same thing happened to my late pastor’s wife, he waited until he turned 65 to start withdrawing, she had worked most of her life, were I did not. She still ended up drawing off her husband’s as he made more money, and SS kept what she paid in when she retired at 65.
Because new hubby is Ret. SCPO, I then qualified for Tricare Life instead of CHAMPUS. Disability stopped when I turned 66. http://www.foxbusiness.com/personal-finance/2015/01/05/filing-for-social-security-choose-your-start-date-carefully/
ENT’s PA called in a script to our old regular drug store of 30 yrs, as it was a 1 time script, and Tricare refused to cover it just this past Thursday, as FDA had made it a OTC drug. Just another way to get in your pocket. 2014 we were mandated to use Military base or Express Scripts for daily meds, but a 1 time script or 1 on the weekend could be filled at any pharmacy that takes Tricare Life. Which excludes Walgreen’s.
So many moving parts to the decision on when to take SS.
How do you “freeze” your Medicare premium? Start SS the same time you start Medicare, even if that is before FRA? Does starting SS at 62 freeze your Medicare premium, even though Medicare won’t start til 65?
If anyone has a link to an explanation of this I’d appreciate it.
The full article is behind a paywall, but I've seen this reported elsewhere.
The law prevents an increase in Medicare premium that exceeds your increase in Social Security benefits. Since the SSA has announced there will be no COLA increase in 2015, that means a lot of Medicare participants won't see an increase.
But, that means the people that don't get Social Security will get larger increases, because the cost increase must be spread among a smaller pool of people. It could be as much as 50%.
Very helpful, thank you.
“Our problems arise in all these other groups jumping on the band wagon.”
No the problem is everyone jumping on the band wagon. Everybody. Nobody pays their own way in Medicare.
Everyone has demands on the system that go above and beyond what they pay in premiums (and over their entire lives).
So it’s broken.
“Completely. Whatever badness this situation contains is Obama’s fault, without any ambiguity.”
Obama has helped it along, but Medicare was born as an bad situation.
No “Republican” or “Conservative” solution will save it.
There will be much misery between now and it’s ultimate failure - but it’s because it is a socialist/communist construct.
I feel sorry for all of you presently on Medicare. You are going to bear the brunt...first financially, and then through it’s inevitable complete failure.
There is no politician - liberal or conservative that is going to fix this.
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