My wife and I have Medicare A-Z, I think, if our insurance agent is correct…

What a disaster of a bewilderingly complex program. Open enrollment, deadlines to buy/sign up, parts A, B, C, D, 30 days to file in writing an appeal for any errors the system may have made but lifetime monthly penalty from Medicare if you don’t notice the error and file an appeal within 30 days, endless evasion/shunting from agency to agency when phoned, dead end appeal departments who NEVER answer the phone (and they admit that a letter if you ever reach them by mail.) Old people do not navigate this maze well. It is easy to pad their bill.

Medicare creates a whole field of jobs for insurance hucksters on TV, phone spammers and insurance companies. All of these take advantage of the confusing complexity to transfer money from the elderly into their pockets.

Government money is always about the skim.

When you chose the Federal government as your insurer, what sort of performance did you expect?

The Federales OWN healthcare now. All of it. Not just Medicare.

Yeah, it can be confusing.

And...it's not the consumer/patient that defrauds medicare that we read about in the headlines several times a year...it's the unholy trinity of doctors, hospitals (owned by consortiums of doctors) and big pharma. Issuing orders for tests we don't need, surgeries and procedures we don't need, pills we don't need, expensive solutions to problems that don't exist...and billing medicare and supplemental to the max. My scant faith in medicine a few years back has gotten now to the point of total skepticism of the whole system. Follow the money. Any doctor who questions the money factory of the unholy trinity has their license revoked immediately.

Yes. The whole program should have been a simple one agency deal with an explanation of exactly what was/was not covered. Allowing other entities to exploit the system with use of the medicare/cade vernacular created a totally unnavigable maze. "No" is always the first response with maybe a positive ending on about the 3rd appeal.

Lots of profit made with the fact that most simply give up.

Yup, all you have to do is open your eyes and see how fuqked up it is now.

So, you suggest that the OP should not have signed on to Medicare when he turned 65?

Damn! Had no idea. Now I've got a whole new reason to dread turning 65. A few years away, but still.

We go in and between Medicare and BC BS they pay the bill. Been very good or lucky I guess. Edk

If half the people do not have enough money saved for an unexpected medical expense, you are going to get socialized medicine.

Now you are in a government program.

Characteristics of gov programs; complicated, inefficient, and misery to users.

To make it more competitive, they have different insurance companies get involved.

But it is still a gov program.

A, B, D,G is what you need, little out of pocket


Call a certified Medicare adviser. They can explain it all to you.

Exactly.

It's not like we have a viable choice.

Bottom line is we eventually learn to play the game and win .... the alternative is to lose.

It's confusing and frustrating a-f though, no doubt about it. I will say this, once you get it down and provided your supplemental is decent .... they pay the bills. It's affordable and there are few questions asked.

I have more issues with my VA and TriCare supplemental than Medicare. They all seem to fight against one another.

Like you my faith in the medical system took a huge hit in the last couple years, however, if people would not sue over everything then insurance wouldn't have to be so high, and doctors would not order so many unnecessary tests.

I have a Medicare advantage plan through United Health Care. Best and easiest insurance I’ve ever had. Medicare itself doesn’t pay my bills, they pay UHC to cover me, along with my former employer. Most I’ve paid for anything was $35 for a whole battery of tests when I had a “spell” a few years ago. EKG, CAT scan, stress test, and IIRC, a chest x-ray. Out of pocket limit is about $1k IIRC, and I’ve never come anywhere near that. I did pay for a non-covered calcium heart scan last year to get my MD off my back about my cholesterol. That was $100. $10 co-pays, $15 for specialists. Includes gym membership (fat chance), home visits by a nurse, and a certain number of hours per month for transportation to care, or other needs in my home.

I only pay for my Part B, the rest is covered as a retirement benefit.

Healthcare has been socialized by a thousand cuts.

+1 to both.

Over the years we as a society have voluntarily become more and more reliant on the government teat it seems. We now are running out of options to do otherwise.

You to pay for it.

I have the Humana Pro Choice, PPO.It includes the entire front range here in Colorado and out of state if you notify them before going.Also includes a good prescription plan.United Health Care only covered this one county. You also have to pay the monthly Medicare premium though

My hospital bill for 3 days the hospital for my stroke, the bill was $90,000 + . Of course the contracted rate was a lot lower, but I only paid less than $1000. Ditto for a shoulder replacement a few years ago.

My wife has straight Medicare plus a Supplement and a presrcription drug plan and pays for it.

Find a certified consultant, and let them explain everything and advise what is the best plan for you. It won't cost anything.

Trying to get approved and then complying with all the rules of the Department of Labor for disability of Past Nuclear Workers is ten times harder than Medicare.

Your view is naive. The costs of medicine have risen catastrophically. American health has declined. Entitlement mentality is rampant across ALL of American social strata. It was/is inevitable.

Total joint replacements are going through the roof.

https://pubmed.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/30988126/

Results: Predicted total annual counts (95% prediction intervals) for THA in the United States by 2020, 2025, 2030, and 2040 are (in thousands): 498 (475, 523), 652 (610, 696), 850 (781, 925), and 1429 (1265, 1615), respectively. For primary TKA, predicted total annual counts for 2020, 2025, 2030, and 2040 are (in thousands): 1065 (937, 1211), 1272 (1200, 1710), 1921 (1530, 2410), and 3416 (2459, 4745), respectively. Compared to the available 2014 NIS numbers, the percent increases in projected total annual US use for primary THA and TKA in 2020, 2025, 2030, and 2040 are as follows: primary THA, by 34%, 75%, 129%, and 284%; and primary TKA, 56%, 110%, 182%, and 401%, respectively. Primary THA and TKA use is projected to increase for both females and males, in all age groups.

Conclusion: Significant increases in use of THA and TKA are expected in the United States in the future, if the current trend continues. The increased use is evident across age groups in both females and males. A policy change may be needed to meet increased demand.

I know several people with both knees done. I'm sure sooner or later will meet someone with knee and hip replacements in both legs.

I thought my question was pretty clear but I seldom anticipate how poorly a lot of people read.

That's what they are counting on.

Several hundred thousand people paying an extra $20 per month adds up. Most don't even know they are being overbilled or they have given up on the hassle.

Research as much as you can about every government program from Social Security to Medicare to IRS to everything governmental. And then try to find an expert who knows every issue you need to know that you don't even know exists.

My experience was that Social Security staff at the Bellingham, WA office were friendly, helpful, courteous and gave me WRONG information EVERY time I went in over an 18 month period leading up to me taking Social Security. One of them actively misled me which costs me in the form of a lower check each month for the rest of my life. No whining here and I am glad to be getting anything, but don't trust anything officials tell you without double and triple checking.

We have the best insurance/Medicare expert we have found, way more knowledgeagle than any other agent we have talked with including the ones who hung out their shingles as expert advisors on Medicare.

Clark good reasoning. Let's drill a little deeper here, why can't people pay even pay for the simplest urgent care items? How did simple things become so prohibitively expensive? My grandson had a simple greenstick arm fracture last month...bill 2,740 bucks. An uninsured normal birth is around 13,000 bucks. That is just the birth, no pre or post natal care. Maybe it is simplistic to think this way...but I think it is because of tort law. If Doctor or hospital makes any mistake, skips any test, misdiagnoses any problem...here come the lawyers...ka-ching and juries (us) play right along. So Doctors, in an abundance of caution have to check every single box, every possible precaution must be taken and documented. So lawyers and insurance companies are calling the shots, with very predictable results. And also here in the state of fruits and nuts, there are signs everywhere ..."Atencion Medica Gratis"...we are all paying their bills, so their employers don't have to.

The dysfunction in medicine is so total and so vast, nobody can rationally care.

For example, I'm terminal. I have radiation disease, a leftover from being zapped for Hodgkins in the 1970s. I am off the charts, most of my cohort has been dead for 20 years already. But the radiation syndrome when it started killing people was not publicized at all. I was treated at NYU in New York, along with hundreds of others, but there was never any outreach to warn "survivors." So, I finally had a stroke, in the radiated area of my brain, in a family with no stroke history.

The neurologists had no clue. In fact, I was left to figure it out myself, and about six weeks later decided I needed to see an oncologist. So I did, had scans, and I'm lit like a Christmas tree. The biggest thing is prostate cancer, and right behind that is mesothelioma of the GUTS. That's a 1 in 300,000. Chemo for one doesn't affect the other. I got castration because surgery would have catheterized me, nope. But the prostate PSA thing is still burning, so the onco said "Enzalutamide." Guess what? Enza is 17 grand a month! The "old" stuff, Bicalutamide, is 16 bucks, not grand. I haven't analyzed the survival rate or life-extension difference between the two, users of both still die PDQ, but Enza is NOT a thousand times better. Holy phuock!

And no, while I'm getting close, I don't expect I'll be able to get on Medicare.

This what my company provides though I am not yet of age.

Everything, and I mean EVERYTHING the federal government manages is totally “F” ed up.

It's not government money. It's my money coming back.

You get it.

Your money was spent a long time ago, that is how a pyramid scheme works.

Sounds like you need a new agent

Nah. They used other people's money. They still have mine, and I'm getting it back.

The system is seriously screwed up. The system exists to make a profit and not for the for the long term benefit of the patient.

It is.

Needed the one we have two years earlier.