Medicare

Do you know you are old when you get a reduced fare at a movie theater? Is it when your hair turns gray or you lose it? Is it when younger people start finding you less physically attractive? Nope, none of these. In the United States, you know when you must sign up for Medicare at age 65.

Okay, I should not say must. I guess you could pay for all insurance yourself at 65, if you could get an insurance company willing to cover you; but if you had been on a corporate, retirement package, you will have no more health insurance if you don't sign up for Medicare. In some ways, Medicare may benefit these corporations as much as anybody because they then pay less of the employee insurance costs and the government picks up some of it.

Signing up for Medicare might not be so bad if it was easy to understand and simple to make the transition. Unfortunately there is no one single program for seniors at 65. There is Medicare, Medicare Advantage, Medicare Complete, Prescription Plans Part D, Q, and Z (I made up part of that), and who knows what all else. Just for fun, look at how clearly Wikipedia explains it: Part D.

Usually when I write something here, I have thought it through. I try to be logical and present my viewpoint (even if some doubt that). No way I can do that with Medicare. It is an eight letter word of which I never liked the sound, knew was coming, now here it is, and it's as confusing as I was dreading. I am hoping others who have been through this process will write about their experiences and how they see the options.

My husband will be on Medicare as of June 1. I won't be in it until October but already I am being impacted by it as sometimes when a corporate insurance package gets changed, everything gets screwed. We shall see if that happens here.

My experience of going through transitions, which happened once before when my husband retired from his company and went onto their retirement insurance program, if there are possible glitches, there will be. There is nothing like an insurance problem to make you favor single-payer, universal health coverage for all citizens. It's scary to realize you could be on your own in a world where such care can be highly expensive, sometimes prohibitively so.

Recently I read that in Oregon some doctors are refusing to take new Medicare patients. Potentially that can lead to long drives for treatment. The reason given is Oregon has been efficient in its cost savings which means the government cut back the percentage Oregon receives which means the doctors get less than they want for their services. Guess who suffers?

For a woman who doesn't like to think about technical things, who prefers not to think much about money at all, this whole thing is frustrating. If I go online to start looking for information, I find so many sources that I can't figure out which one I should trust. The government programs don't seem to get to the bottom line unless you have a high tolerance for BS.

They say if we go with 'Medicare-Complete' (the corporate end), continuing with the retirement part of the insurance we have had for many years, our coverage won't change at all. They say it will avoid us signing up for whatever those prescription drug options are because the HMO covers it as it does now. They say by paying a higher premium, there will be no donut holes (which means time in the middle of the year where prescription drug charges went over a certain amount until they reached another amount). They say instead of paying one insurance premium each month, if we went with Medicare Advantage, we will have two payments-- one to Medicare and one to the insurance end of it.

Or some say if we go with Medicare Advantage-- and I am assuming Complete, we are not being fair to all of those who can't afford those programs and cheating those who have no corporate benefits. Some say Advantage really costs more than a combination of Medicare and the drug coverage (which by the way, it won't surprise me if the latter is someday canceled due to high costs). Some say if we went with Medicare Advantage, we will be locked into whichever insurance company we originally chose even if it later changes and becomes less desirable to us.

None of this is perhaps a big deal when you think of all the problems in the world. Well, it kind of is as it just plain confuses a person at an age where I thought we were supposed to be treated more kindly and gently (joke).

Although last year my insurance company only paid for one yearly mammogram and one costly daily prescription medication, I can't count on it staying that way. Nobody can know if they will be hit by a catastrophic medical problem from seemingly out of nowhere-- something that is increasingly likely to happen in old age. So insurance does matter to me more for what might be than what is obvious at the moment.

Do you think if Congress was forced to go onto Medicare that this would be so confusing? Just asking...