When I loved there everyone running for Agriculture Commissioner one year was either under indictment or out of jail from corruption charges.
As Earl Long said “Louisiana has the best state legislature that money can buy.”
Investopedia ranks AARP/United Healthcare as its number one supplement plan of 2023, followed closely behind by Blue Cross/Blue Shield.
This link is an interesting resource for anyone shopping for a supplement plan.
mmm
@JohnT I believe you recommend going with a licensed Medicare Supplement broker, rather than starting directly with an individual insurance company, if one hasn’t already decided on a provider (let me know if I have that wrong).
How should I choose a Medicare Supplement broker?
I have several retirement accounts (IRA, 401k) at Fidelity brokerage, and they apparently do offer Supplement plan advice/brokerage services; any reason to, or not to, go with the devil I know? Any alternatives you recommend?
It is all based on your zip code - the plans are the plans.
Your broker will only be able to sell those plans to which they are registered with the insurance company. If your broker doesn’t have permission to sell UHC, for example, he won’t sell you a UHC plan.
My advice?
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Go to www.healthcare.gov. Do a search on Med supplement plans. Just review a few, get an idea of what your options are.
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Go ahead and use the brokers supplied by your services. Again, they can only sell you what is available in your zip code.
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But do some shopping first.
Thanks, JohnT. I have reviewed the plans (and prices) in my state, and I have a decent feel for what I think I want (a high-deductible version might be the ticket for us, as we have no difficulty paying for routine stuff), but still uncertain as to what company (UHC et al) to choose; I would sacrifice a minor difference in price in exchange for a better chance at good customer service, if needed.
Other than picking a semi-random one, then, I guess I’ll go with Fidelity. I don’t plan on retiring until May; is there a point/problem with contacting the broker now? Or will I just be wasting everyone’s time until I’m ready to choose and set a concrete effective date?
Thanks, as always.
I’ve been doing a lot of amateur research of late, with a focus on supplement (Medigap) policies.
It can get confusing because, just within the supplement plans, you must choose between plan A, B, D, G, High-G, K, L, M, and N.
The book that has become my go-to (other than this thread, of course) recommends going with G, with N as a second-best option.
I will probably go with BCBS plan G, with I have found for $137/month.
mmm
The Medicare Open Enrollment period is over, just want to remind people that the ACA marketplace Open Enrollment ends on the 15th. The Biden Administration has put in some nice subsidies, so if you’re in the market… or just curious… head to healthcare.gov and compare plans.
Thank you for the reminder.
I’ve gotten a plan G supplemental plan via AARP/UHC. The A and B parts have been fine, it’s the part D part that’s kicking my butt. I went into the catastrophic phase of coverage in November of last year. That’s a whole LOT of out-of-pocket expenses. I don’t see that getting any better.
AARP/UHC has been sending me post cards asking me to call them.
You’ve helped be a lot before Mr. T… Maybe you’ll be kind enough to help me some more.
Should I call them? And what plan do they offer that might save me some real money on my prescription costs?
Thanks
While you’re waiting for JohnT: out of curiosity (I have to choose soon) is your plan G regular or high deductibe?
No, don’t call them. The only thing they are going to do is sell you on a Medicare Advantage plan.
As I mentioned above, a Medicare Advantage plan might sound appealing with a $0 premium. However, the out of pocket expenses including the maximum out of pocket, the co-insurance, and the deductibles typically make MA plans more expensive than a medicare gap plan + a part D prescription plan which are sold separately.
This is especially true if you are in poor health.
You can shop your Part D plan to find cheaper drugs. And, of course, different pharmacies will sell the same drug at wildly different prices under your plan, so you may have to go to CVS for drug A & B, and Walgreens for drug C, if you’re goal is to minimize expense.
… again, if you live in FL or CA, the MA plans can be quite good.
If you are headed that route, your #1 variable you want to look at is MAXIMUM OUT OF POCKET. Once you hit this number, the MA plan effectively converts to a Med Sup plan and covers 100% of your covered MA expenses (excepting drugs). A Moop of $2,500 with a $50 monthly premium is far superior than a Moop of $8,100 and $0 premium.
Thanks for replying, John. Sorry it took so long for me to respond.
No, I won’t respond to the postcards. I kinda figured it was a con$job.
As far as meds go, I take a bunch, prescribed by several doctors and none of them are on the same page. So, the 'scripts are always refilling and expiring in almost random orders.
It all revolves around the day I pick the prescriptions up, as that’s when the timer resets. Thus, 30-40 trips a year. I’ve jumped through those hoops and got sick of it. I don’t know if I want to be driving all over the place many times a month to get a prescription here and prescription there at different pharmacies, John.
As it is, I have opted out of the automated call feature that is offered at any pharmacy. Y’know, the one that just automatically alerts the pharmacist to fill a prescription whenever it might be possible to do so, then leaves an automated message telling you it’s filled.
This used to send me to a pharmacy 30 or 40 times a year. F that.
Opting out and finding a pharmacist who doesn’t mind organizing things in an intelligent way and being able to look ahead (actually being able to think, not like the computer program making the automated phone calls) has gotten me down to less than 10 trips a year to the pharmacy, including those one-off 'scripts that show up now and again, and the kind lady is diligently trying to make it even less trips for me. I know she can do it and I also know she’s going out of her way to help me. It’s a tough path for me to follow as I doubt I can do anything to make it worth her while. I feel guilty.
I’ve chosen my part D plan from the short list of the only offered part D plans available that were connected to my chosen supplement plan G company (AARP/UHC). I’m pretty sure I’ve got the cheapest one and use the suggested pharmacy. But, I never know if I’m doing the right thing any more. It’s all too confusing. Probably designed that way…
So, it’s $7400+ o.o.p. for prescriptions plus the part D premium costs and part B premiums and the part A premium being removed from my SS checks. And then the deductibles and and and. It’s a lot of money.
I need new glasses and my teeth worked on too. It’s all getting be too much.
Costco has a system to align renewals of your prescriptions to lessen the number of trips. I venture to guess that they are not the only pharmacy that offers this feature.
WalMart also does this.
So does Walgreens & CVS. Heck, for a small extra fee, they’ll package up a week’s supply of all your various pills in a daily reminder device and ship that to you every week.
My CVS is of the automatically refill variety. I’ve never seen an option to group[ them, but I only have 3. They mailed it to you for free during the pandemic, now they charge.
You can turn off automatic refills which helps, and there is a way of archiving one time scripts so they don’t try to refill them.
There is absolutely no way of telling them that you don’t want the damn refill now.
Other than original Medicare, health insurance is primarily regulated on the state level. THAT is why there’s so much variation.
And I’ve found that the availability and cost of Part D plans (prescription drug) vary from county to county.
Right. Thanks. I get that. I’m just wondering how Louisiana, which pretty consistently ranks in the bottom 5 or 10 for healthcare, has a much lower per capita income than Washington State, and and spends less per capita on healthcare than Washington, can wrest a better deal from, say, Humana, than Washington state, which does better by all those measures. And Louisiana has a much lower per capita income does, so it’s not like insurance companies see Louisiana as a state that would pay off big time.
I’m clearly missing something, maybe something obvious.
I’m back to also chime in with thanks to @JohnT and also recommend a Medicare Supplement policy. My husband went on Medicare Jan 1 2022 and had an Advantage plan out of the gate, as the zero premium was very attractive. Well by year’s end we’d paid a couple of thousand out of pocket in copays and coinsurances. So he took advantage of the opportunity to switch once in the first 12 months and we grabbed a Plan G supplement for him. The premiums for this and the pharmacy plan add up ao about $170/mo, so even in a healthy year he’s sure to do better than what we’d spent last year. And it’s a sure thing that as we age, the chances of having healthy years get smaller and smaller and costs will just go up and up.
Thank you JohnT!