04-24-2021, 02:07 PM
$tevie wrote:
[quote=Lemon Drop]
[quote=$tevie]
I am on Medicare. You have to pay for everything except basic Medicare, and on top of that you have to pay for supplemental insurance because Medicare doesn't cover half of what you would want/need covered. So joy, rapture, now people as young as 50 can learn that Medicare ain't nearly the wunnerful thing that people who aren't on it imagine that it is.
PS: guess who sells the supplemental insurance? Private insurance companies, that's who. Guess they ain't going anywhere any time soon.
Yes you need private supplemental insurance, but at least in my Moms case it is still by far the best arrangement out there for covering health costs. She pays $300 a month for a supplemental plan and has very low out of pocket cost for meds, and had no out of pocket for 3 days in the hospital and a week in a private rehab after a fall. No surgery or broken bones thank goodness.
The hospital billed insurance something like $40k for that, she owed nothing.
We average one specialist visit or screening a month, no out of pocket.
I would love to have that myself. It does little for people who don't have $300 a month for supplemental. Qualifying for dual Medicare/Medicaid requires one to be staggeringly poor, so there's that same old gap that the not-poor-enough always fall into.
But honestly, my main objection is that people think this is a first step to single-payer when in fact it's the first step to creating a situation where private insurance companies will be gouging the hell out of seniors to make up for losing their customers in the employment sector.
I would love to see universal, single payer care. Canada's system seems to be holding up. The UK's conservatives are doing their best to ruin the NHS.
Just looking at the options we have now, Medicare plus a supplemental private plan is the best thing going and would be an improvement for me anyway.