So talking with a Medicare broker and she said go with the Medigap plans when you first get Medicare, then flip over to M A later in life.
I’m leaning Plan N to start next year.
Her reasoning is by mid 70’s you already had bypasses, operations etc. and the monthly Medigap premiums get quite expensive as you age, you can switch M A plans every year without underwriting.
I know M A plans get a bad rap but was wondering if what she told me was on the up and up.
In general, people have MORE health issues as they age, not fewer. I believe my parents health care in their 80s and 90s would have been much better if they hadn’t been scammed into an Advantage plan.
What happens if the premium gets too high on Medigap and people can’t afford it as opposed to low if any premiums on M A, it could mean the difference between having any medical coverage at all.
At 70 years old, the last thing I would want is to fight denials by my insurance (medicare advantage) company. I plan to stick with Medigap. Also, where you live could impact your strategy. In MN, where I live, premiums are community based. Meaning, I believe, that everyone in the plan pays the same premium regardless of age. Other states do things differently.
I use the word “scam” to describe Medicare Advantage as well. Everyone loves the plan until they get seriously sick.
I”m 68 and men in my family seem to die before 80. I also was in the work world for 50 years with employer insurance plans that did the same thing a Medicare Advantage “scam” does. I know that we have the technology that might make me be able to live into my 90’s, but little has been done to address quality of life. I know Medigap might pay for cancer treatments for a 90 year old who can’t recoognize anyone in their family, but quite honestly, I’d rather die. So I went with the Advantage “scam”
The suggestion from your broker that annual health care expenditures decrease as a person ages does not appear to be correct. The Center for Research Retirement at Boston College in a 2022 study used data from Medicare and Medicaid record and also the Medical Expenditure Panel Survey to includes payments to retirees from other insurers (e.g. employer sponsored plans, labor unions). They found that “annual health care spending (excluding premiums) rises with age. For example, mean spending on health services for retirees grows from $21,400 per year at age 65 to $36,600 at age 90.”
Healthcare worker here (recently retired). This is one of the more stupid things I have heard an insurance person say. As of now, if a physician can medically justify a treatment then it gets paid if a patient has traditional Medicare . Medicare Advantage (MA) is managed care and they can and do deny lots of things. I know this for a fact as I had many many family members crying on my shoulder as their insurance denied ______ (fill in the blank). MA can also tell you what physicians and facilities to use or ones where you will have to pay out of network costs. What if you don’t want to go to a certain hospital because they have high rate of infection or a less than stellar reputation. Too bad. MC Advantage does not care. Patients can appeal denials but it slows down treatment options, care and can cause issues with having patient beds especially during busy times like flu season and of course there is no guarantee that the appeal will be overturned. You will not find retired physicians signing up for MA- they know how awful the policies can be. The problem is people get angry and want to go back to traditional Medicare, but there is a financial penalty to swap back from the MA plans. Insurance agents don’t use medicare products and they either make it up or just repeat what they have been told. MA plans can be less expensive and they throw in nice incentives like dental insurance, but your choices will always be limited.
Well, if advantage denies procedures, or there are no physicians in your state, or you have to wait many months for an urgent appointment (all of which have occurred to people I know), how is that any better? It is still a denial of treatment/coverage.
I would be curious to know more information of these denials. We were warned of “death panels” when the Affordable Care Act was being discussed. And that was because the government might tell an 85 years old that they can’t get chemo treatments. So are their reports that can break out the denials by the age of the patient? Are denials across the board or are they taking things like age into account as the “death panel” denies this care? My father died at 75 from cancer. He went thru chemo once and it damned near killed him. He went into remission for 3 months and it came back. Medicare was willing to pay for another round. He asked his oncologist what his odds were that if he went thru that hell again that it wouldn’t come back in 3 months. His doctor told him that it was one in ten. Dad declined the treatment.