Is it a fact that people on Medicare can not change to a Private Health Care Insurance

[Winterblues]

Even if someone would ever want to do such a thing? I heard Dick Armey say on Meet the Press that those on Medicare are not permitted to ever change programs. Not Permitted. He made it out to be Government Tyranny which is quite the stretch but is it the truth? If so why would it be so? What is the Logic or Rationale for making it Mandatory?

[sharesunited]

1. I have a high deductible plan with a Health Savings Account.

By its own language, it becomes void upon my eligibility for Medicare.

[CountAllVotes]

2. I'm in the same boat

I have to be enrolled in Medicare otherwise the supplemental plan I have would dump me very fast. It is written into the "deal" whether I like it or not.

:kick:

[CC]

3. Legally you can withdraw from

Medicare. Now finding an insurance company that will let you buy insurance from them after 65 without Medicare as your primary is another thing. Next to impossible since their actuary tables would tell them you would be a drain on their profits.

So the government would let you out but private insurance doesn't want the risk.

[Winterblues]

5. Dick Armey said he was in the process of suing the Government

for the Right to leave Medicare. If he could do so legally, why the lawsuit?

[CC]

7. Did he actually produce the court

papers he filed and show the court date? He can say whatever he feels like but that doesn't mean it true or factual.

Unfortunately the person I ask showed me the site on their computer with how to do so so I have no idea how to find it. They do make it difficult to do though.

[OHdem10]

13. Dick Armey is concerned with paying taxes.

Ask this question. Can you withdraw from paying taxes that
pay for Medicare. Armey sees taxes as coercion. Since he
is rich, and can buy his own health care he has been ranting
about having to pay SS and Medicare Taxes.

Saying you cannot get off Medicare is a red herring and another
the government is coming after you scare.

Can Medicare patients change to another HC Plan.

Right now I am on the Medicare Advantage plan. It might
be considered private insurance. However the government
does subsidize the Insurance companies.
BTW, I hope the Democrats are careful with this issue.
Yesterday, Fox ran a piece in which Medicare Advantage
Clients were on the Air.

The Democrats, I have been warning them, need to have
some good explanations when it is framed Obama is throwing
one group out of coverage in order to insure the uninsured.
Many people are happy with their care and all this business
about it being a scam escapes them. What are you going to
provide that is as good for close to the same price???
This should have been nipped in the bud along time ago.

Back to the question. Armey is wanting a way out of
paying Medicare Taxes.

[ThomWV]

4. Any old person can go out and buy all the insurance they want, but they can't avoid taxes

That is what that blowhard Armey is babbeling about, he doesn't want to pay the taxes for Medicare.

[valerief]

9. Wow, we can pick and choose where our taxes go? I don't want any

of mine to go to war! Or TARP!

[napi21]

6. It is trie that after aage 65 Medicare is yyour primary, but

there are hundreds of supplemental policies to cover almost everything. Why would you want to dumo Medicare>

[Cleita]

8. Yes, they can and it's spelled out on the Medicare website.

However, most insurers drop you when you become sixty-five and then they try to enroll you in one of their Medicare Advantage programs, in which you sign off all your Medicare rights and they take the money from Medicare. If you want to keep your Medicare, they will try to sell you a medigap policy that covers what Medicare doesn't. In some rare occasions, a person over 65 can still be carried on their spouse's private policy. The decision, unlike what Dick Armey would like you to believe, is not Medicare's but the private insurance industries'. These guys are such blatant liars. He knows better.

[TreasonousBastard]

10. Sure you can, and you don't have to sign up in...

the first place.

But, why would you want to since you can't get private insurance for the same price but you can buy all the supplemental insurance you can afford if you stay with Medicare?

Only if you've got so much money you don't care what the bills are and you can pay them without blinking. In which case you likely aren't getting Social Security, either.

[RebelOne]

11. I am 70 years old and still working full-time,

so I am opting to stay with my employer's health plan. I pay about $200 a month and I have medical coverage, life insurance, dental and eye care. Medicare doesn't have all that. I'll just stay with this plan until someday I can afford to retire.

[Frances]

16. You are right that medicare doesn't cover life insurance, dental,

or eye care.

I have a friend who is over 65 and gets Social Security. She is still working and kept her employer-provided health plan. However, she had to have a hip operation (after 2 visits to the emergency room). Of course, the total cost was huge. She had to pay about $2000 to the hospital out of her own pocket. She thinks that if she had been using Medicare (including Part B) she would not have had to pay the hospital anything.

My husband and I both have Medicare plus AARP Part J, which covers just about everything that Medicare doesn't cover. We have never had to pay anything to doctors or hospitals or ambulances from our own pocket. My husband has serious health problems and has had to use an ambulance and has had 3 hospital stays since the beginning of the year.

I suggested to my friend that she compare the cost of her employer health insurance premiums plus their co-pays against the cost of Medicare Part B and AARP Part J. Then she would know which plan would be the most cost effective for her.

Personally, I am extremely grateful for Medicare. The private insurance I had before I was 65 was extremely expensive and the co-pays were high. The insurance only covered 80% of hospital costs. I worked but my employer did not provide insurance. The insurance would have been prohibitively expensive once I turned 65.

[DailyGrind51]

12. Try buying private individual insurance after the age of 50 anyway!

They don't want us, especially if we are on prescription medications.

[CountAllVotes]

14. right you are

almost everyone over the age of 50 has a pre-existing condition. Who will insure you? No one is the answer to that.

[dysfunctional press]

15. no- that is NOT true.

you can definitely go out and buy all the insurance you want- or rather could get.
someone who is on medicare due to disability probably wouldn't be able to find an insurer who would sell them a policy- i can't even get one to sell me medicare advantage coverage- so i'm on the hook for the 20% that medicare won't cover.
for people over 65- the coverage is also available- but it would be prohibitively expensive for most.

[Blue_In_AK]

17. My mother-in-law had Medicare

and a supplemental policy from AARP that didn't cost much, $129 a month or something like that. Between the two, they entirely covered her broken ankle a couple of years ago, and we have been told that they will entirely cover the last five weeks of her life following her heart attack which she spent in the hospital. We are certainly hoping that is the case.

[CC]

18. Unless bushco really messed things up

Medicare probably will pay everything for your MIL. Specially if the hospital/caregivers told you it would. When my FIL had cancer (he was here with us) they picked up everything including his pain meds and made it really easy on us. Or maybe the doctors, hospital then hospice were just really good at their paper work. We never even saw a bill, just statements of what was done and paid.

[Blue_In_AK]

20. That's what we're hoping for.

We were also very fortunate that Jim's dad had bought a burial policy back in the '70s for $750 (!) which would have now covered flying her body back to Texas, a full memorial service, with flowers and everything, and burial in a plot down there. However, her wish was for no service and to be cremated and scattered up here, so that's what we're going to do, and send some ashes back to New York with Jim's sister to be interred with MIL's family. I think the cremation would have cost $1500, but with the policy we don't have to worry about it.

She didn't have a lot of money at the time of her passing, but it will be nice if we are able to disburse a few thousand dollars to her children.

[Cleita]

19. AARP medigap is pretty good. They cover what Medicare approves but

doesn't cover like the 20% co-pay. I seldom have to pay anything out of pocket with the exception of the premium which has doubled since I first went on it four years ago.