Telly
Thinks s/he gets paid by the post
- Joined
- Feb 22, 2003
- Messages
- 2,423
The Learning Curve – Clawing Up, Sliding Down
I started the Medicare learning process just over a year in advance. Glad I did. Started with the Medicare website Medicare.gov. All sorts of info locked away there, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Their simple Medicare primer left me with a lot of questions. And I was not retaining what I read over time.
I acquired a good cheap book “Get What’s Yours for Medicare” by Philip Moeller, hardcover $10.97 on Amazon. The book is very good, read it slowly from cover to cover. The layout of chapters is great, made it easy to go back to locate and re-read particular parts whenever I needed to over time (often!). The author writes it from a what’s important to the user position.
Then, fortified with some knowledge, I thought could ask people in-person about what THEY did. I asked people I knew over 65, I asked poll workers sitting there bored with no voters at early voting (primary and run-off elections), etc. ZERO useful information gained. One person was honest, said “I really have no idea”. Others had such a fleeting incorrect knowledge it was scary. I started out trying to determine whether they went the Original Medicare route, or the Medicare Advantage (MA) route. Even when I described the two alternatives, they had no clue. Mentioning particular trigger names to see if it would help them remember, I got choices back and forth that were impossible, they dithered with nonsense. They really didn’t know anything. One guy got crabby, started complaining about “why are they changing the (Medicare ID) numbers to some random number?! I can’t remember that!” A total wipeout. The only useful info I got from ANY people were virtual people, the users here at E-R.org!
The Fork in the Road – We must choose a path
Whether to go the “Original Medicare” route: Medicare Part A and B + a “Medigap Plan” + a “Part D Drug Plan”.
or,
A “Medicare Advantage” (MA) Plan: you pay a Part B premium to the gov (they act as collection agent for that premium), the gov takes that $, adds lots more $$$, all totaling up around $10k per person per year on MA, and they hand it over to your MA plan provider, who may(should!) have their own premium you pay too. You deal with the MA plan provider, you live by their rules. Usually has the drug coverage built-in. May have other “benefits” in addition.
I chose to go the “Original Medicare” route, so the rest of my monolog will be about how I chose a Medigap plan, and a Part D drug plan.
Before I Forget – No special state rules here
I live in a state (TX) that, like most states, does not have some state-only rules, like the “birthday rule”, or taste it and put it back on the shelf if you don’t like it.
Choosing a Medigap Plan – Which letter?
The book and other sources had the same grid from medicare, that shows the various plans F, G, N, etc. versus the areas covered. The book had a bit more text info. I did some paper layout calculations of F vs. F-HD vs. G, looking at the yearly premium amounts (I used AARP/UHC for F & G, for F-HD I used a ~number I found here). I then added scenarios of various increasing steps of expenses in both Part A hospital and Part B. I really wanted to get a feeling of Plan F-HD versus Plan G. I forced myself to think a bit about future medical expenses, not using my low $ pretty-healthy past experience. I decided that for me into the future, Plan G was best.
Plan G – Whose?
AARP/UHC is free and forthcoming with premium cost at your zipcode at www.AARPMedSupp.com. At least at the time I was looking, I could also download a table with premium cost per letter plan vs age, so I could get an idea about premiums into the future. Inflation is not included, that can change every year. So this gave me a baseline. No other insurers had cost info online, they all were “fill out this form, and a licensed insurance agent will call you”. Ugh!
I have not seen anything bad about AARP/UHC, so if I couldn’t get anywhere, I figured they were a safe choice. But I wondered… being a safe choice, and with AARP membership, it seemed so easy to just do it and be done. Is that “easy to do” figured into the pricing? I really wanted to compare other ins. Cos. Plan G’s to AARP/UHC, but how? Our user MBSC here provided a great source. A website I could pay by month to get into, to see what ins. agents see. So for 1 month I signed up at CSGActuarial.com. I paid the $10 basic for one state, mine. I could have paid a bit more and got more info, like previous premium increase history, in retrospect that might have been worthwhile. Remember to send them an email to cancel service before the next billing date after your month is up. I actually got 6 weeks service for the $10.
Wow, were there the choices! Data data! And you set your parameters, zipcode, plan letter, sex, age, etc. etc. and run it again and again changing parameters to see. I sorted by lowest premium cost. I made on a ruled pad columns for: Company name/plan, AM Best Rating, age 65, 70, 75, 80, date of last increase. Then I filled in each company’s row with all the info. I looked at Wikipedia to learn about AM Best ratings, the capability of an ins. Co. to pay their claims over time. I decided of the A++, A+ Superior; A, A- Excellent; B++, B+ Good, I would not look below a B++. I also would note where some biggies like AARP/UHC, Aetna, BCBS fell. At the time, BCBS TX was at $146/mo. For G, so I set that at the top. Yes, there were many that were WAY WAY over that! Some so expensive I don’t know who would use them!
So I picked out about 15 companies. In general, lower starting premium at 65 carried out to lower premium in every age step (I did this every 5 years, remember). I searched some of the companies I never heard of, some were pretty small, and some of those I found poor comments online for from customers, also saw some “this is a terrible place to work, and why“ from ex-employees! Also heard of “buying the market”, where an insurer may come out with a product, sell it low to get a whole group of customers, and then jack up the rates “caught you, sucka!” So I needed to be careful of bottom feeding on premium alone. I came up with a list of at least 6 that met my qualifiers, AND were significantly enough below AARP/UHC at the start and over time to make it worthwhile.
Now Fortified, I can ask for Help
Now that I wasn’t a babe in the woods anymore, I felt I could go to an independent online agency, and see what they came up with. Here on E-R.org I had seen SeniorSavingsNetwork.ORG (Chris Westfall in SC) mentioned with good report. I also found lots of good reviews online for BoomerBenefits.com, a local here in TX. And there may be others. I got info on one in the US Mail that was local and mentioned multiple rates for my zipcode range, but did not specify a company in the mailing, call. I set up a call with BoomerBenefits, it went well, unhurried, could answer all my questions, and unprompted, they suggested one I was already looking at as being very high on my list, United World, a Mutual of Omaha company. I did NOT know that UW’s HH (House Hold) discount was, to me, unusual. At least one adult, not more than 3, living with you. Does not have to be someone on Medicare with them. Need to ID who the person is, easy for me, it’s DW. Discount is good as long as that person is there. If spouse, and if spouse later dies, still retain the discount. That was a 12% discount, dropping the premium further. Other discounts I have seen for companies, were 5%, 7%, and some 12%. I do not know all their rules for the discounts. So with UW/Omaha, my age 65 premium is $116, vs. ~136 area for AARP/UHC. BB told me that UW/Omaha’s past increases have been low. So I signed up.
Part D Drug Plan
Well, for me, this one was simple. I’m not on any prescription meds, and since we can change Part D’s every year for any reason, I just need a placeholder. I was looking at Express Scripts cheapest plan, BB suggested Aetna Medicare Rx Saver for $16 and some change, went with them.
Conclusion
Overall, I feel good about the eventual choices. Of course, time will tell. And to be completely eyes-open, I do know that many ins. cos. routinely give insurance agents certain inducements to sell their product, just like drug companies with Doctors and the drugs they prescribe. So any independent agency may have some selection tilt.
I started the Medicare learning process just over a year in advance. Glad I did. Started with the Medicare website Medicare.gov. All sorts of info locked away there, but I didn’t know what I didn’t know. Their simple Medicare primer left me with a lot of questions. And I was not retaining what I read over time.
I acquired a good cheap book “Get What’s Yours for Medicare” by Philip Moeller, hardcover $10.97 on Amazon. The book is very good, read it slowly from cover to cover. The layout of chapters is great, made it easy to go back to locate and re-read particular parts whenever I needed to over time (often!). The author writes it from a what’s important to the user position.
Then, fortified with some knowledge, I thought could ask people in-person about what THEY did. I asked people I knew over 65, I asked poll workers sitting there bored with no voters at early voting (primary and run-off elections), etc. ZERO useful information gained. One person was honest, said “I really have no idea”. Others had such a fleeting incorrect knowledge it was scary. I started out trying to determine whether they went the Original Medicare route, or the Medicare Advantage (MA) route. Even when I described the two alternatives, they had no clue. Mentioning particular trigger names to see if it would help them remember, I got choices back and forth that were impossible, they dithered with nonsense. They really didn’t know anything. One guy got crabby, started complaining about “why are they changing the (Medicare ID) numbers to some random number?! I can’t remember that!” A total wipeout. The only useful info I got from ANY people were virtual people, the users here at E-R.org!
The Fork in the Road – We must choose a path
Whether to go the “Original Medicare” route: Medicare Part A and B + a “Medigap Plan” + a “Part D Drug Plan”.
or,
A “Medicare Advantage” (MA) Plan: you pay a Part B premium to the gov (they act as collection agent for that premium), the gov takes that $, adds lots more $$$, all totaling up around $10k per person per year on MA, and they hand it over to your MA plan provider, who may(should!) have their own premium you pay too. You deal with the MA plan provider, you live by their rules. Usually has the drug coverage built-in. May have other “benefits” in addition.
I chose to go the “Original Medicare” route, so the rest of my monolog will be about how I chose a Medigap plan, and a Part D drug plan.
Before I Forget – No special state rules here
I live in a state (TX) that, like most states, does not have some state-only rules, like the “birthday rule”, or taste it and put it back on the shelf if you don’t like it.
Choosing a Medigap Plan – Which letter?
The book and other sources had the same grid from medicare, that shows the various plans F, G, N, etc. versus the areas covered. The book had a bit more text info. I did some paper layout calculations of F vs. F-HD vs. G, looking at the yearly premium amounts (I used AARP/UHC for F & G, for F-HD I used a ~number I found here). I then added scenarios of various increasing steps of expenses in both Part A hospital and Part B. I really wanted to get a feeling of Plan F-HD versus Plan G. I forced myself to think a bit about future medical expenses, not using my low $ pretty-healthy past experience. I decided that for me into the future, Plan G was best.
Plan G – Whose?
AARP/UHC is free and forthcoming with premium cost at your zipcode at www.AARPMedSupp.com. At least at the time I was looking, I could also download a table with premium cost per letter plan vs age, so I could get an idea about premiums into the future. Inflation is not included, that can change every year. So this gave me a baseline. No other insurers had cost info online, they all were “fill out this form, and a licensed insurance agent will call you”. Ugh!
I have not seen anything bad about AARP/UHC, so if I couldn’t get anywhere, I figured they were a safe choice. But I wondered… being a safe choice, and with AARP membership, it seemed so easy to just do it and be done. Is that “easy to do” figured into the pricing? I really wanted to compare other ins. Cos. Plan G’s to AARP/UHC, but how? Our user MBSC here provided a great source. A website I could pay by month to get into, to see what ins. agents see. So for 1 month I signed up at CSGActuarial.com. I paid the $10 basic for one state, mine. I could have paid a bit more and got more info, like previous premium increase history, in retrospect that might have been worthwhile. Remember to send them an email to cancel service before the next billing date after your month is up. I actually got 6 weeks service for the $10.
Wow, were there the choices! Data data! And you set your parameters, zipcode, plan letter, sex, age, etc. etc. and run it again and again changing parameters to see. I sorted by lowest premium cost. I made on a ruled pad columns for: Company name/plan, AM Best Rating, age 65, 70, 75, 80, date of last increase. Then I filled in each company’s row with all the info. I looked at Wikipedia to learn about AM Best ratings, the capability of an ins. Co. to pay their claims over time. I decided of the A++, A+ Superior; A, A- Excellent; B++, B+ Good, I would not look below a B++. I also would note where some biggies like AARP/UHC, Aetna, BCBS fell. At the time, BCBS TX was at $146/mo. For G, so I set that at the top. Yes, there were many that were WAY WAY over that! Some so expensive I don’t know who would use them!
So I picked out about 15 companies. In general, lower starting premium at 65 carried out to lower premium in every age step (I did this every 5 years, remember). I searched some of the companies I never heard of, some were pretty small, and some of those I found poor comments online for from customers, also saw some “this is a terrible place to work, and why“ from ex-employees! Also heard of “buying the market”, where an insurer may come out with a product, sell it low to get a whole group of customers, and then jack up the rates “caught you, sucka!” So I needed to be careful of bottom feeding on premium alone. I came up with a list of at least 6 that met my qualifiers, AND were significantly enough below AARP/UHC at the start and over time to make it worthwhile.
Now Fortified, I can ask for Help
Now that I wasn’t a babe in the woods anymore, I felt I could go to an independent online agency, and see what they came up with. Here on E-R.org I had seen SeniorSavingsNetwork.ORG (Chris Westfall in SC) mentioned with good report. I also found lots of good reviews online for BoomerBenefits.com, a local here in TX. And there may be others. I got info on one in the US Mail that was local and mentioned multiple rates for my zipcode range, but did not specify a company in the mailing, call. I set up a call with BoomerBenefits, it went well, unhurried, could answer all my questions, and unprompted, they suggested one I was already looking at as being very high on my list, United World, a Mutual of Omaha company. I did NOT know that UW’s HH (House Hold) discount was, to me, unusual. At least one adult, not more than 3, living with you. Does not have to be someone on Medicare with them. Need to ID who the person is, easy for me, it’s DW. Discount is good as long as that person is there. If spouse, and if spouse later dies, still retain the discount. That was a 12% discount, dropping the premium further. Other discounts I have seen for companies, were 5%, 7%, and some 12%. I do not know all their rules for the discounts. So with UW/Omaha, my age 65 premium is $116, vs. ~136 area for AARP/UHC. BB told me that UW/Omaha’s past increases have been low. So I signed up.
Part D Drug Plan
Well, for me, this one was simple. I’m not on any prescription meds, and since we can change Part D’s every year for any reason, I just need a placeholder. I was looking at Express Scripts cheapest plan, BB suggested Aetna Medicare Rx Saver for $16 and some change, went with them.
Conclusion
Overall, I feel good about the eventual choices. Of course, time will tell. And to be completely eyes-open, I do know that many ins. cos. routinely give insurance agents certain inducements to sell their product, just like drug companies with Doctors and the drugs they prescribe. So any independent agency may have some selection tilt.
