OT: medicare/health insurance question

I'm on Medicare and have an AARP Supplement plan that pays the 20% in full, with no deductible. It's just gone up to $161 per month, but I'm happy with it, as are the doctors.

The AARP plan pays no meds at all and I have another plan - Part D United Health Care (AARP) that costs $27 per month and comes directly out of my social security and carries a co-pay of different amounts for different categories of meds. I do take several different medicines and last year AARP paid only up till April and then I was on my own paying 100% until my out of pocket expenses reached over $5,000. Fortunately I didn't go over that limit, but I came close enough to think the program stinks.

There are several places on line that will give you comparison charts for different plans and estimated cost for each, including Medicare. Off hand I can't remember the different sites, but if you would like I can look and see what information I might still have.. The $395 might be cheap if it pays for all her meds in full, but that would be unusual.

Lucille

She may only have to pay the co-pay if Medicare doesn't pick-up the entire amount. In the practice I worked at last time - we had a lot of patients with that situation. The billing manager really handled the details. A $10 copay is pretty low - most have gone higher. IME, the supplement plans are handy when they cover things that medicare doesn't, especially there is a lot of labwork which medicare requires very particular diagnosis coding. Or expensive procedures.

Hope you work it out - I guess it takes some research. I'll ask my DA, the retired doc, she's doing insurance co. consulting, and may know. Though plan rates tend to very by state.

Ellice

Just looking at the monthly amounts you all have to pay even if you don't ever use the program it is a lot of money. I am glad that I live in Alberta Canada, it was only $60 max monthly/person [capped at

Since I get my pension, I also have Blue Cross which is also paid. Blue Cross pays all prescriptions, ambulance, dentist/dentures [group B level], eye exams, and glasses. Only things I pay are over the counter items, and even some of them are paid for in full without prescriptions.

"J. H. T./B.D.P." wrote > Just looking at the monthly amounts you all have to pay even if you

In Saskatchewan, we have not had any health care premiums for decades, despite being a "have not" province.

Dawne

If the PPO is going to be primary and medicare secondary they should be billing the co-pays to medicare to pick up. Your mom shouldn end up with nothing more than the mandatory amount that everyone has to pay for medicare on a yearly basis.

Celeste

Here in NS ditto. In fact for the princely sum of $390 per year one can also have Pharmacare which highly subsidizes any drugs. There are a few drugs not covered, mostly the more expensive editions of things which have generics etc. but otherwise a prescription usually costs $4/5 which seems a good deal for those who use it, the fact that I don't, is my good luck, but I pay in case I will need it at some point.

That was the only caveat, when you turn 65 you must join, if you don't and fancy joining when you start needing drugs, then it is more expensive. The other thing about it is that you can pay that $390 however you want spread throughout a calendar year.

Many people have tried to "sell" the Canadian health system to other countries, particularly the USA. It hasn't worked, and probably wont work into the indefinite future. There is one basic reason. There is no equivalent to Tommy Douglas anywhere in the world at the moment. Dont forget Saskatchewan had to defeat a doctor's strike before it got it's system in place. From what I remember, it was only after this strike was settled that the doctor's realized what a wonderful system Tommy Douglas had invented, and the rest of Canada joined in. Jim.

You left out the weight of the American insurance companies, health care is NOT in their interests, look at the sqawk Blue Cross put up here to try and prevent national health care ! They still do some business with people who are less than 65 for drug and dental plans but even their 'private room' coverage is dying away as new hospitals come online which only have private, or single person, rooms.

Sorry, you have lost me. I know nothing about the US system. What I was trying to say was that, whatever the system in place, if you want to put in a Canadian style system, you need another Tommy Douglas to break the existing syatem. And, at the moment, I see no clones of Tommy anywhere around. Jim.

Thanks to all who replied...it gives me some background to start with.

And for you Canadians - Pfffttt! LOL! Maybe someday we'll have universal health insurance, too...I sure hope so. Our system is so dysfunctional. There's a real hunger for the political will to address health care reform, but with the current economic mess, I'm afraid it'll be awhile before that issue can be addressed.

sue

"F.James Cripwell" wrote

Besides Tommy, who was truly a visionary, Saskatchewan needed a number of doctors from the UK, who, because they had practised under National Health, were not frightened by the bogey of (gasp) socialized medicine. Doctors did indeed go on strike, and numbers left the province to go either to the US or elsewhere in Canada, so these imported doctors were literally lifesavers.

Tommy was motivated by his own near miss as a boy; had a doctor not waived his fee, Tommy would have lost a leg, since his parents could not afford the care. He wanted to be sure this would not happen to anyone else (there is the difference, IMHO, that makes saints; if they have suffered, they work to be sure others don't, instead of wanting everyone else to go through what they did in the name of some kind of warped fairness). Perhaps there is a young man or woman in the US now who will become another Tommy.

Dawne

Hillary Clinton gave it a try but the insurance companies moved very fast, the television was swamped with ads warning Americans about the 'government getting in your medical files' and of course, it was down the pan in no time flat.

The thing is that with all the political crooks we have today, Tommy D stood out in parliament to the very end, no politician dared touch him!

"lucretia borgia" wrote

Another of the same era and cut from the same cloth was Stanley Knowles. Both in politics to serve the people--what an odd idea.

Dawne

True enough. Tommy D did very well in the CBC famous Canadians.

I'm not trying to pick on you, Vic, lordhelpme, I'm not, but that statement is rubbish.

Elizabeth

Actually, the Whitewater investigations resulted in some 14 convictions, though there was never enough evidence to charge the Clintons. They did end up making good on back taxes that they had failed to pay.

Elizabeth

I have no idea whether she was paid or not, I just recall her doing it, being interested and feeling it was time healthcare arrived south of the border, then the insurance companies weighed in and even up here we were privvy to all the ads.

Wasn't Whitewater to do with something in their lives before the time they were in the White House ?

I think she meant 'First World' country - just don't like that description.