My parents are nearing age 70. They both hold dual US-Taiwan citizenship. Mother lives in Texas, father is in Taiwan but will retire and come to Texas soon.
They have no health insurance and are still in relatively good health. They are counting on Medicare if something goes wrong, and my father insists that they need no insurance and that, if something like cancer happens, he (and/or my mother) could move back to Taiwan to get it treated (where healthcare is 10x cheaper than in America.) Problem is, cancer is a gradual condition. If something sudden like a car crash, stroke, heart attack or whatnot happened, he/she couldn’t count on flying back to Taiwan.
With senior citizens running into $100,000/year medical bills these days, and Medicare and everything governmental being unreliable, I’m concerned this is a financial and health disaster waiting to happen. The strange thing is, my parents know firsthand how costly senior-citizen treatment can be in America, having seen my aunt incur massive medical bills after a stroke. So their optimism is puzzling. They also seem to think that their faith in God will serve as insurance or somehow shield them from problems - or that if something bad does happen despite their taking no precautions for it, that it’s just God’s will.
This. Many insurance companies have some form of Medicare Supplement or Medicare Advantage that helps cover what Medicare won’t, and it isn’t terribly expensive. I have a Medicare Advantage plan with Blue Cross/Blue Shield and it runs me $130 a month. I haven’t needed to use it much yet, except for routine check-ups, but I sleep better at night knowing I’m covered in case I ever need it. I’m 69 years old and not getting any younger.
Thanks, I’ll see if I can talk them into it. If they balk at the cost, then I’ll offer to pay for the premiums all out of my own pocket (although I’m worried my parents will still try to use the ‘faith in God means we don’t need Medigap’ angle.)
My main concern is that Medicare only covers a finite number of days in a hospital or facility, 60-90 I believe. Once those days are up then you are fully on the hook for all costs (and even then, because of co-pay, you’d still have to pay tens of thousands of dollars for those 60-90 days). So something like a year-long coma would probably cost a million dollars. So yes, Medigap time.
Your parents should read the “Medicare primer” posts by @JohnT in this thread. I just went through the Medicare sign-up process and his clear explanation was a lifesaver. The thread is from 2021, so I wondered if rules might have changed, but as far as I call tell everything he wrote is still true.
You can’t just sign up any old time - for Medicare Advantage and the supplemental plans, there is an ordinary enrollment period (I think it is around October to December every year but don’t take my word for it). I am not sure how Medicare Part A (hospital coverage) will work for them since I think there is a 3-month window leading into your 65th birthday when you are supposed to sign up; obviously that has passed for them. But, there are SEP (Special Enrollment Periods) for people who need to sign up outside the usual periods - maybe they will qualify for one.
To figure out their enrollment period and what the best plan is for them, they can contact the SHIP in their state for help. Every state has one - it is a federally funded program to help people navigate the incredible confusion that is Medicare.
Finally, I note that JohnT’s advice includes this, and I don’t know how that will affect what is their best choice. But if I were them, I’d start researching this NOW:
· You are guaranteed to be issued a MS [Medicare Supplement] plan when you turn 65 (or first get Part B, whichever is later), but after this “guaranteed issue” period, you will have to pass medical underwriting to get a supplement plan, something difficult for many seniors to do.
Shop around for supplemental insurance. When I first went on Medicare I went with a plan from the company that provided the health care I had while employed, that cost me $124 a month. At the next renewal period I talked to a lady sitting at a table at my local grocery store. I thought she would be selling a plan for a specific company but she wasn’t. After going over what I needed she found a plan that cost me only $34 a month and provided better coverage. With this plan I get $125 a quarter, $50 for medical supplies and such and $75 for what they call basic needs, rent, groceries, clothing. My older brother and his wife are low income and they have a plan that costs them nothing and they get the same benefits.
Piling onto the supplemental insurance bandwagon here.
Both my parents had this and they both had expensive health issues in their final years. I’m guessing many 10s of thousands of dollars for each. Out of pocket costs for both were only a few thousand dollars. Every tax dollar my father grudgingly turned over to the government came back to him or my mother a few times over.
This would be covered separately by long-term care insurance. I looked into it for myself last year and decided it wasn’t for me, but my situation is not your parents’ situation.
Thanks for the advice everyone. That’s lots of good info and places to start.
Unfortunately, figuring out what insurance to get is a small problem compared to persuading my parents to get that insurance (even if I pay for it). They’re usually reasonable except when it comes to anything that suggests “lack of faith in God,” at which point they suddenly become extremely obstinate. I have never learned a way to get past that barrier and persuade them. But that’s a separate issue.
Not automatically. You have to set it up. I’m not taking Social Security yet, so I’ve put my premiums on autopay from my checking account. But you can pay however you like, at least for the plans I have - anything from the old-fashioned mail-us-a-check to making monthly bank transfers to autopay to having it deducted from your SS.
Are your parents church-going people? Do they have members of their congregation who are currently battling long-term, debilitating illnesses, have stopped going to church because they are too frail to get there, or who have already died? Ask your parents if those people’s faith is less strong than theirs.
Do your parents actually understand how inadequate Medicare is for many things? That’s what Medicare supplements are designed for. Do they understand that if they need long-term care for something like dementia, they’ll be forced to liquidate virtually all their assets to qualify for Medicaid? These are not faith-related issues. These are hard facts that elderly people constantly face.
I’m sure they understand on an intellectual level, but they are very hard to budge.
My father is the sunny-optimist type of believer: Bad things won’t happen, and if they do, they’ll be easily remedied. No worries. We’ll cross bridges when we get to them.
My mother is the negative-faith-hardship-persecution believer: If bad things happen, they are God’s will. If God commands (whatever she thinks is God’s will), I must obey. If we go broke, we go broke. If I refuse, I refuse. (even if it was totally unnecessary for them to go broke)
Tell them with a straight face that God wants them to be covered by insurance. They have insurance on their house and insurance on their car, why wouldn’t they want insurance on themselves? A house and a car can be replaced, but they can’t be replaced. Talk to their pastor or preacher, if you have to, and have him or her explain the danger of not having complete medical insurance coverage at any age.
There’s also long term care (LTC) insurance. The amount per day that they will pay out depends on what you elect for the policy. Basically, if your parent has a stroke or some other problem that requires constant care, the insurance will pay for assisted living (or a portion thereof). My wife and I both have that insurance. We chose a lower amount, as we have other resources.
because very few hospital stays last for months, even in coma cases. What you might need to worry about is the sort of long-term care that neither Medicare nor Medigap nor private health insurance covers - a nursing home or home care. You need long-term care insurance for that to be covered and it can be very expensive.
And extraordinarily hard to qualify for these days, even if you are willing to pay through the nose. If you have any pre-existing health issues and are over 50-odd, you might as well forget about it.
The largest payer of long-term skilled nursing care most everywhere is medicaid, which you have to be quite poor to get. But that is easy to achieve. Just spend all your assets on private medical care until you’re dead broke (y’know, like in a few months ) and then voilà! You’re covered.
) and then voilà! You’re covered.