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Admirable_Nothing t1_ixab48n wrote

I have less problems with my Medicare Advantage plan than I did with my company medical insurance before I retired. It is a good deal for my family the consumer. I presume it is a good deal for the insurance carrier as they keep making slight improvements in the plan for the same cost each year. And it is a good deal for the Government as it costs them no more money that what my medicare premiums are. So that is a 3 for 3 win. Now if you are a Republican you could argue that nobody but the rich should have health care and I wouldn't be surprised, but for the rest of us this thing works well.

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Roundaboutsix t1_ixko3kw wrote

You’re lucky. My mother had an advantage plan and a lot of her care was out of pocket. I have a supplement through my old employer (our retiree group of purchasers is 5-6K people) and we get a good plan for a couple of hundred a month. Depending on your healthcare needs different strokes work best for different folks.

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Admirable_Nothing t1_ixnr1oi wrote

A couple of hundred a month is about $2500/year. Do you think you would have deductible or copay of that or more each and every year? We haven't. We have had the Medicare Advantage Plan for 12 years now and only had one year when we used any of our $5300 annual copay max. I think that was about $2000 for one of us. We do pay the $20/40 copay when we have a Drs appointment but that is less than 5 times/year. Everything else has been covered, "knock on wood." Clearly the Supplemental plan is better if you have frequent medical problems. But when we made the initial decision we had pretty normal medical circumstances so guessed that the MA plan would be long time less expensive for us. So far it has been. My mentor chose the full $400/mo for both of them Med Suppl plan. His wife ended up having significant medical issues so that worked for her. He has been pretty healthy.

That is the real problem with the decision when you are 65......You have to guess what the future holds for you in terms of medical costs. High future costs, means that Medicare and a Med Supp plan will be best. Low future costs means a MA plan will work for you best. Unfortunately folks without means and experience in medical decisions often just take Medicare alone and that has significant holes as well as maximums that are easily exceeded.

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Elder_sender t1_ixahcaf wrote

And another offer of first-hand positive evidence to counter the hysterical. Wonder if you'll get downvoted too! Happy day.

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orangezeroalpha t1_ixal3zm wrote

Can I ask what you are on about? Did you read the article? Medicare Advantage plans overcharged our government lots and lots of times, typically via rules those insurance companies had a hand in crafting.

The fact that one or two people write on reddit about having a good experience means almost nothing in comparison. These two people have no clue how much a comparable medicare plan would have cost or what that coverage would have been.

Medicare Advantage plans exist because they milk money from the patients and government and coerce providers to do more and more for free.

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Elder_sender t1_ixancal wrote

Sure you can ask what I am about.

Yes, I read the article, and discussed it at length with my wife. We signed up for an Advantage Plan last week, so it resonated with us. We generally like NPR, but do find it to be a bit reactionary sometimes. This is a good example.

The fact that one or two people write on reddit their actual experience does indeed mean something. One or two posts out of 13, and the only ones that relate actual, first-hand knowledge.

Especially when compared to the unsupported, overly broad claims such as those in your post. "Medicare Advantage plans exist because they milk money from the patients" What does this mean? It is absurdly unsupportable bombastic claims of malintent.

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orangezeroalpha t1_ixar5w5 wrote

I hope it works out for you.

Can I ask what it was about the advantage plan you found to be advantageous? I've seen examples where people effectively pay less per month for the plan, and then get sick, and THEN realize how much coverage they lost vs the traditional medicare plan.

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silver_sofa t1_ixawaf6 wrote

Speaking of anecdotal evidence I could offer a couple of observations. When I turned 60 doctors stopped talking about how healthy I was for my age and started talking about all the many, many diseases that were lurking just around the corner plotting to rob me of my “golden years”. This coincided with an avalanche of mailers offering me “advantage plans” that would fill in all the massive gaps in my Medicare coverage. It’s marketing. When I retired the company had seminars to help retirees sort thru the options - bottom line was, “it’s a crapshoot.” It all plays to fear, uncertainty, and doubt. Most of my colleagues based their choices on anecdotal evidence.

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Admirable_Nothing t1_ixayni8 wrote

It is a tough decision. One of the hardest I have ever had to make. Not only do you need to learn each competing system you have to predict the future....i.e., your need for expensive medical treatments. That is unfortunately unknowable. The way I approached it was to actually take all the classes I needed to become licensed to sell medicare advantage or medicare supplement plans plus classes on base medicare coverage. I don't know anybody of means that simply takes base medicare and trusts the Govt to take care of them although unfortunately those people exist. My analysis was that the best coverage was base Medicare and a complete medicare supplement plan that would cover all the overages medicare won't cover and all the holes it has underneath the maximums. However that supplement was going to cost my wife and I about $500/month extra or $6000/year. Every year we were alive. Yes, Medicare advantage has some holes.......ours is a $5300 annual CoPay. So long as we stay out of the hospital we can save that $6000/year and put that money away for the years when we unfortunately will need some overnight stays. I have a colleague, another insurance professional, that took the Advantage plan for himself, a normal retired healthy male, but took the supplement for his wife who had a history of substantial medical problems. I support his analysis and decisions.

Whatever decision you made.....advantage or supplement, hopefully it will actually work out for you the way you analysed the choices.

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