Liz Brennon

Comments:

• Thanks.

  Post: Medigap pricing question

  Link to comment from September 7, 2024

• Glad you found it useful.

  Post: Medigap pricing question

  Link to comment from September 7, 2024

• My mom bought 6.5 years worth many years ago. Covered my father in a nursing home, now my mother first in assisted living and now a nursing home. Next month will end year 6 for her. Fortunately her pension and SS have been banked so when she runs out she can continue to live at that private nursing home. She is 96.5 years old. Without it she would have ended up in big trouble. I fail medical underwriting and can't get it. Have failed for years due to cancer. No idea how I will cope with this if I live as long as her and her siblings, parents, great grandparents, aunts and uncles...

  Post: Long Term Care? Who has it?

  Link to comment from September 7, 2024

• Of course the big problem is that we don't have a crystal ball to see what we will need in 20 years... and likely fail medical underwriting if we don't fail it already. That is one of the problems with making your decisions based on your health today. People need to look at family health, longevity, etc. going back as many generations as they can to have some sense about what is going likely going to happen as they age.

  Post: Medigap pricing question

  Link to comment from September 7, 2024

• However with Medicare Advantage plans they do. I think that was the (unstated) comparison the commenter was making.

  Post: Medigap pricing question

  Link to comment from September 7, 2024

• They also trap you (AAPR United Health Care did this a year ago) by having a separate legal entity open the new version of the plan so you have to pass legal underwriting to switch to it even if they don't close the "old" one. In this case they opened one without the free "extras" which made it $70 cheaper (so not free). On the flip side at least their plans are community risk based and not age attained or age signed up. Those don't need to close their plans as each risk group age or age range is a separate entity.

  Post: Medigap pricing question

  Link to comment from September 7, 2024

• With the 2 years later medicare premium B increase, depending on what is going on, they can file a change of circumstances to lower that. Another group affected is those whose student loans are written of. They get a 1099-C and that is considered ordinary income which is taxable and as such as would affect Medicare B premiums 2 years later.

  Post: Medigap pricing question

  Link to comment from September 7, 2024

• You said, "The max out of pocket is $5000 per year.". IF you hit that max you may well be spending more than Medicare B+G as B if you have G only has a $240 out of pocket. Depending on the state of your vision, hearing and teeth, you may still spend less. Medicare D in 2025 will have a $2000 max out of pocket. As you point out the math varies by person and what you need. The big catch is medical underwriting for switching back and forth (outside of the limited switching that is allowed by law between MAs and gap).

  Post: Medigap pricing question

  Link to comment from September 7, 2024

• The government gives the medicare advantage plans more money than they allocate otherwise per person for medicare A. That accounts for some of the "extra money" BUT as for profit companies expect to have money for their shareholders they have to "save" money somewhere so they can make a "decent" profit so their stockholders are happy. That "somewhere" can affect your care. Research documents that it is routine for MA plans to reject, for example, residential rehabilitation after major surgery and instead send you just to physical therapy and if you are lucky have an aide come a couple hours a week to help out (so you better not be living alone). There is a lot of "noise" about the rate of treatment plans, referrals, etc. rejected and the time it takes to appeal it, what they force people to do first before they will finally approve it, etc. which does compromise care. Whether or not that will be fixed is unknown. With gap plans if Medicare pays for it then the gap plan is required by law to pay their part.

  Post: Medigap pricing question

  Link to comment from September 7, 2024

• I live in the armpit of the nation and we are consistently the worst in the nation for health care. I have had to get second opinions at MD Anderson Cancer Center and the Cleveland Clinic (both out of state, the first 8.5 hours from where I live and the second is in the same are my family lives where I grew up) and in ALL cases locally they were wrong and/or didn't even know about the most recent chemo/treatment choices. I think it depends on where you live and who accepts your advantage plan for what makes the best choice. With an Advantage plan in my state I'd be limited to care in 4 counties (includes the state's capital with a low ranked university medical center, joint commission D rated) and that means I'd not get even close to good care. People don't live as long in this state for good reasons, not all of them related to failure to expand medicaid.

  Post: Medigap pricing question

  Link to comment from September 7, 2024