What are folks paying for Medicare supplemental insurance?

[rzemanfl]

I am in the process of getting ready to retire someday if I live that long (I actually do retire on the 31st and go back to work the next day for five more years.) I was quoted what struck me as an outrageous premium for Medicare supplemental insurance for my wife and me ($6,000 a year and that's the current rate). Do they have pre-existing condition exclusions, co-pays, deductibles?

[Jackpine Radical]

1. I'm currently paying $20,000 a year for health insurance. I kid you not.

In October I get Medicare Parts A & B, paying $94 or something like that for the Part B. I will need to continue my regular policy in order to keep my wife covered, but it will drop to something like $16,000 a year. Then next year when my wife gets on Medicare, if we want to continue this policy as a supplement, it will be about $11k per year. I'm a retired state employee, and this plan is what they offer in my area of the state. As of right now, my insurance premium is several hundred dollars greater than my retirement check after 23 creditable years with the State.

[jwirr]

2. Okay, what does supplemental insurance cover when you are already

on Medicare? I am on Medicare and Medicaid so I have never looked int it.

[Jackpine Radical]

7. It's fairly complicated, actually. Too much so to simply lay it out here,

in terms of types & amounts of services, copays, drugs, etc. Suffice it to say that Medicare doesn't cover as much as you might think it does.

[yy4me]

30. Supplements differ but in general, they are designed to pay

some or all of the charges and fees not covered by Medicare.

You are paying the $100(ish) a month for part B, Your Medicaid probably covers all the copays, drugs, fees and balances that are out of pocket if you don't have supplements.

I cannot afford Part B supplement or the Drug coverage supplement so I am a sitting duck.

[rzemanfl]

3. Where do you live? That is obscene. $11,000 a year to cover

20% of your bills?

[Jackpine Radical]

8. I know. I'm in a low-income area of western WI where there is little competition

among plans. State employees are limited to 2, and one of them doesn't include the clinic & physician I prefer to use.

[rzemanfl]

12. I lived in Wisconsin before I moved to Florida. I thought that

Wisconsin State Employees could use their accumulated sick leave to pay for health insurance, or is that just the University system?

[Jackpine Radical]

17. You're right, if you have the sick leave. At $20K/yr you burn through it fast.

Also I got my sick leave wiped out after going through bypass surgery some years ago.

[Lebam in LA]

4. Holy Crap!!

:wow:How do retirees afford this?

[rzemanfl]

5. They tell you you'll need 2/3 of your pre-retirement income to

retire, they don't tell you your pension won't cover your insurance. My wife and I are thinking about starting a "Fuck You! We Aren't Paying Anything!" movement.

[Jackpine Radical]

9. Mostly I guess they don't.

In my case, I'm still working, and see no way to actually quit.

[Serial Mom]

26. I guess the only way to quit working is to have an affordable public option

or universal single payer where we all have the one plan, a choice of doctors & hospitals and nobody could say they don't accept you as a patient.

It should be standard healthcare, and for all optional health coverage that is unnecessary for the well being of people (cosmetic or additional testing not recommended), let the rich pay full price for what they want and let them WAIT for those optional services.

[asjr]

6. I had BCBS supplemental for

Medicare for a while. When they raised my premium to 152.00 a month I said sayonara to them. My only income is SS so I could ill afford that amount. Should have cancelled it years ago.

[Jackpine Radical]

10. How much did BCBS cover?

Or to put it another way, how much did they leave uncovered?

[asjr]

13. They covered 20% of a medical bill.

[Jackpine Radical]

21. Jeez. That's pathetic.

[iamtechus]

11. $6K sounds about right

That's roughly the same as wife and I will soon be paying. Round numbers here:

Medicare pt A is "free" (hospitalization)
Medicare pt B deducted from ss checks   $2,400 per yr (doctors' services for both of us)
Medicare supplemental plan "J"          $3,600 per yr (covers any co-pays or overages)
                                    tot $6,000 per yr

Plan "J" is one of the better ones that will leave you with no deductables or co-pays for almost anything covered by medicare parts "A" and "B". Those numbers will apply for most people retiring at 66 or 67. It goes up a little with age.

Editing to add that none of the above covers prescription drugs. Medicare pt "D" is nothing but a plan invented by corporatists to destroy medicare. I am already getting all of my prescription drugs from overseas online pharmacies for less than the pt D premiums.

[rzemanfl]

15. The way I understood it the $6,000 was just for the supplemental

plan, not Part B.

[petersjo02]

14. That would be "my wife and me"

My husband retired 10 years ago, I retired 5 years ago. The medicare rate will go up each year and will vary depending on your age. I pay about $120/month, my husband about $140/month (he's five years older). We also have BC/BS supplement insurance. Premiums for that are roughly the same as Medicare.

[rzemanfl]

16. At least I didn't say "me and the old lady".... It looks like I can

never retire at those prices.

[SheilaT]

18. What if you don't take any medications,

have no health issues, and therefore already spend considerably less than even $6,000 per year for medical stuff?

I recently took a job where I have pretty good health insurance, and it includes the set-aside money to pay for co-pays and the like. That money is a "use it or lose it" thing, and I'm extremely reluctant to set aside money I'll never use. Let's see, I wear contact lenses, so I need an eye exam every year, which my insurance will pay for less a $20.00 copay, and they will pay $170 towards contacts, which is exactly what a year's supply should cost me. I'm sixty years old, in extremely good health, never get so much as a cold. I decided I'd put aside $400.00 per year to cover my out of pocket expenses, and I'm seriously concerned I won't spend that much.

This is one of the reasons we need single payer. Why should anyone pay far more for insurance than she'll ever use -- I'd be much better off socking away that six or twenty thousand dollars in my own personal health care account and use the money if needed. And why should anyone have to pay a significant portion of her income for coverage? It's nuts either way.

[rzemanfl]

22. I have a plan like that too,. There are a lot of over the counter

things it covers so you can stock up on those to burn leftover money. If you get toward the end of the year and have money left you can always get your teeth cleaned a little early or something.

Be careful what you say, my wife recently said to me "I never use your insurance." She was promptly at the doctor's, labs, MRI people, etc. Fortunately it was more scary than serious.

I consider myself fairly healthy, but I have had kidney stones a couple of times. The last time the "bills" (before the insurance company pretended to fight them and the providers pretended to give in) were something like $28,000 for a procedure where I was in in the morning and home in the afternoon.

[SheilaT]

23. My point is that not everyone

has major health costs. I never have, and while I realize I should never say never, I also account in part for my excellent health by my avoidance of the entire health care industry. They medicalize the tiniest deviation from their standard of normal, and I just don't buy much of it.

My point really is that this is why we need universal free coverage and a singly payer. NO ONE should have to pay amounts for coverage that will bankrupt them.

[rzemanfl]

24. See the words of the late Warren Zevon about not seeing

doctors. I agree we need single payer. We also need a property insurance system where I don't have to subsidize the Hummer driving assholes who build multi-million dollar houses 100' from the high water mark. Starting next month I will be working full-time for about a hundred dollars a week and health insurance (that being the difference between retiring and working).

[Mira]

19. I have a great agent. Mine is comprehensive, and is less than 100 bucks,

I think it's 89 a month.
PM me if you want his name, he is not in my own town, I have met him, but all business is by email or phone.
He has your back.

All the plans are THE SAME by law.
The companies just charge differently.
Interesting, isn't it?

[rzemanfl]

20. Thanks. I am so far away from eligibility that having the man's

name wouldn't do me a lot of good and I am sure I'd lose it before I hit 65 if I had it.

What you are paying is what I was figuring a supplement would cost (around a hundred a month in big round figures). I am starting to think that the insurance companies cut deals with employers to allow them the opportunity to screw their retirees on supplemental coverage. I have been in two government provided plans in different states, both of them have little perks if you stay in the plan after you retire. In Wisconsin you can use unused sick leave to pay your premium, in Florida the state picks up $5 a month for each year of service. I don't know what happens if you choose another insurance, but I plan to find out.

[notadmblnd]

25. nt

:-bd

[JeanGrey]

27. $1000 a month. And remember that if Medicare won't cover

it, your secondary won't either.

[Serial Mom]

28. Really?!? Holy crap....

And hubby & I thought we would pay for private insurance (about $600/mo for high deductible) until Medicare (OR PUBLIC OPTION) kicked in, but why so much for supplemental? Is Medicare not covering that much?

I better do some more research on this! This is scary to me - we planned on the $600/month above then thought it would drop to $200 or $300/month when we became eligible for Medicare.

What are the differences in supplementals - higher deducts, higher co-pays, less percent payment and really how much doesn't Medicare cover? Will we go broke without a good supplemental?

[JeanGrey]

29. It depends. Medicare's hospital deductible I think is 900

now, and they are supposed to pay 80 percent, but unfortunately they almost never do. They pay 80 percent of what they think the doctor should have charged and it is always an unreal amount. You're responsible for the rest.

$600 a month is cheap compared to what I pay - I only keep it for drugs. I take very high priced drugs.

[quiller4]

36. You are responsible for the rest only if your doc doesn't accept

assignment. Our family doc accepts assignment as do all the hospitals in my area.

[grasswire]

31. I know your post is old...

....but I want to jot down here that there are two kinds of supplemental coverage to Medicare. There are Medigap plans, where each benefit is mandated by law very clearly. And there are Advantage plans which are, IMO, a scam and heavily marketed.

Be sure that you know what you are getting.

In Medigap, for example, Plan D benefits will be the same no matter who your carrier is. Plan A, Plan F, etc. -- each will have the same benefits no matter if you have BCBS or Kaiser or whatever. You will know what is covered.

Advantage plans, OTOH, are loosey goosey and nearly impossible to evaluate. And that's the way the insurers like things.

[Stardust]

32. From what I hear from Randi Rhodes, the Medicare Supplemental Plans are

a scam, piggy-backing on Medicare's good rep by using it's very name in their Plan. Randi's mother is getting up in years so Randi permits her listeners to know a bit of her personal life. It may make some listeners uncomfortable while she sheds her tough-girl personna and lets the listeners in. If she dwells on personal matters and I sense that they've wounded her, I have to tune her out. Empathy can be overwhelming sometimes.

Anyway, Randi always does her research and she isn't prone to hyperbole. During her discussions about the Supplemental Medicare that I occasionally have heard, Randi thinks they are a scam that provides scant to the insured and huge profits to you know who. It's a totally fear-based policy. Y'know, I've worked in insurance during my many jobs, justifying selling my soul for a job and stability to raise my kids. And I'm loathe to cause the loss of millions of jobs of insurance employees that will surely disrupt our financial stability. But these bloodsuckers have got to be reined in.

Each Progressive talk show host seems to have 3 or 4 causes that they care passionately about and that passion energizes their shows when those subjects are the topic of conversation.

Fortunately for us that enjoy learning from Randi, the Medicare Supplemental Expose is one of her main peeves. I haven't been to her website lately, but I'd be really surprised if she doesn't have a blog. They all do and the blogs can be very informative.

[Alameda]

33. I've been questioning them too....and would really love to hear

what Randi has to say about it. I went to her website, but didn't find anything on them. You don't have any links, do you?

In going over some of them and making a comparison between Original Medicare and the supplementals, I notice they add on co pays to things Medicare pays 100% for.

This is an important issue, and unfortunately, not enough have looked into it.

[JDPriestly]

34. The Kaiser Medicare Advantage Plan is a pretty good deal if you

are in an area with Kaiser. There are no frills but prescriptions are cheap, and the preventive care is pretty good. I think we each pay a little more than $100 per month. There is a deductible. So far we are healthy.

I do not like the Kaiser dental plan. I think it is a rip-off. But the dental and eyecare coverage is a package, and with my eyes, I need to have good coverage. New glasses normally cost a small fortune for me. I'd rather pay part of the cost on a monthly basis.

I had Kaiser insurance before I retired and really liked it. That is why we chose to continue with Kaiser.

Some regular doctors in our area don't accept plain Medicare patients. Kaiser is a package. All your healthcare is provided at Kaiser's facility.

A few years ago, one of the Kaiser specialists helped me with a pretty serious genetic problem (virtually cured me through a natural remedy). Other doctors had not even recognized the genetic condition although it is not that rare. I was really impressed. That sold me on Kaiser.

[quiller4]

35. We don't carry a supplement for my husband. He has no

chronic conditions and takes no prescriptions. I doubt very much that I will buy a supplement when I am Medicare eligible. After years of private insurance with $3500 deductible and an 80/20 split thereafter, Medicare's lower deductible will still represent quite a savings for me and my prescription expense is under $250/year.