Did You Know there are Uninsured Seniors?
The reason: Medicare’s complex rules:
Ms. Gardner’s next chance to sign up for Medicare is in January, and her coverage won’t begin until July. With her current health plan due to expire in March, Ms. Gardner is facing several months without insurance. And as a penalty for missing the deadline, her monthly Medicare premium will permanently be increased by 10%.
Interesting. Most of us just assume that all seniors are insured all of the time.
Interesting that seniors appear to be treated much worse than nonseniors will be treated under health reform.
No surprise to me, Bruce. Seniors are definitely taking a hit in this bill.
It’s worse than that, or can be (italics mine):…you’ll pay an ongoing late enrollment penalty of 10% of the Part B premium for every 12 months you delay signing up.
This seems to say that the couple who remained on COBRA for 2 years could be looking at a 20 or 30 percent penalty, if they sign up during their second or third general enrollment period.
It’s worse than that, or can be (italics mine):
This seems to say that the couple who remained on COBRA for 2 years could be looking at a 20 or 30 percent penalty, if they sign up during their second or third general enrollment period.
Bart: You need to read the paragraph more carefully, it’s 10%, that’s it, it doesn’t go 10% then 20% and so on.
“If you do not enroll during the 7-month initial enrollment period, you may have to wait until the next general enrollment period. The general enrollment period is January 1 through March 31 of each year. Anyone who has refused, terminated, or withdrawn from Medicare Part B or Part A can enroll again during this period. If you enroll in Part B or Part A (if you don’t get them automatically without paying a premium) during the general enrollment period, your coverage starts on July 1. The cost of Part B may go up 10% for each 12-month period that you could have had Part B but did not take it. You will have to pay this extra 10% for the rest of your life.”
It’s bad enuf that anybody is uninsured in this country (check out Denmark’s system) but SENIORS?…Incredible. Finding a cure through medication would be helpful, but as you know, a lot could be done by all of us thru proper diet and exercise. Self discipline however can be tough.
But if circumstances exist whereby medication is needed, I wanted to possible help some
people out there by letting them know about a site that few people know about, but can
help greatly in paying less for all their medications, diabetes included. I have known
several people it has helped, some diabetic, some with other prescriptions they get, and
hopefully this will help get the word out. The site is http://www.medpap.ws and tho it’s
“free,” the “catch” is that they want you in their store hoping you will impulse shop and pick up other items while you are there. Just be smart, enjoy the
savings, and don’t buy anything else you don’t need.to beat the system. There also is a
short 1 minute video to explain how it works. It is a good program that saves you money so I hope people take advantage of it.
artk: Try re-reading the next-to-last sentence of your comment. I see no other way to interpret “…10% for each 12-month period that you could have had Part B but did not take it.”
Regarding cumulative penalties:
http://aging.senate.gov/crs/medicare17.pdf