So United Health Care is trying to peddle their Medicare Advantage program

[Cleita]

to me. I do have United Health Care for my medigap and prescription drugs because I don't have a choice. It's the best I can get for what I can afford. If I could buy those plans as part of government run Medicare, I would do so, gladly.

So some chirpy telemarketer calls me up today to thank me for choosing them and to interest me in their Medicare Advantage plan. I tell him that I already have medigap with them and aren't about to sign away my Medicare rights so they can get more money at my expense.

Then he says, "So you say you feel you don't need it right now?"

I said, "I won't ever need it because if Medicare ever becomes completely privatized, I will refuse to buy whatever they have to offer even if I end up dying in ditch with no medical care whatsoever."

"By the way," I told him, "your company has a nerve trying to get senior citizens to sign away their Medicare when they know that very few doctors in the area will even accept Medicare Advantage programs because they are too hard to collect from and deny claims at least forty percent of the time. There is no way I will give up my doctors who take traditional Medicare for the local pill pusher who accepts Medicare Advantage programs because that doctor is not a very good one and it's the only way he can make money."

*cricketts*

Then he spoke, "Have a nice day ma'am" and hung up on me.

I bring this up because of the irony of it. I just turned seventy and at my age can't sneeze in the face of the health care industry. I carry those insurers because it's the only way I can have full coverage when the time comes that I will need intensive health care. I work part time to afford the premiums, however, if I truly become disabled, I won't be able to work and I won't be able to afford to buy the extra insurance at the time of my life I will be needing it the most.

This is the dilemma that not only I but seniors across the board face, not to mention those people, who desperately need health care, and are too young to have Medicare and unable to sustain premium payments for insurance must face when they become too sick to afford health care.

This is what Congress is too pig-headed to understand. Health insurance is not the solution but the problem.

:rant: Thanks for letting me vent.

[economicdoom]

1. Public option

My biggest regret with the whole health care mess is that they took the public option off the table. At this point I think it is to late to hope for reform, as even if something passes, it won't be the change we voted for in 2008. As one author put it:

"We can all see the overt costs of private health care, and more importantly of unreformed and unregulated health care. Few see the side effects. Few see how this problem has been allowed to strangle the economy."

http://economyincrisis.org/content/innovation-gap-will-grow-without-us-health-care

Too bad WE see it, and our leaders do not.

[Cleita]

4. Welcome to DU.

:hi:

I'm afraid that our leaders do see and know it, but they are so corrupted by the money they receive from these industries that they pretend not to.

[PHIMG]

9. They took Single Payer off the table.

When they refuse to look at the BEST option why are you surprised when they take the next best option off the table?

The Democratic part is as sold out as the Republican party. When can we admit this and do something about it?

[Vinca]

2. Good for you.

The predators figure older people are easy pickins. Thanks for setting them straight.

[Cleita]

3. I hope they recorded it for training purposes so that they know they

picked on the wrong old biddy, one who has been studying this health care issue and its problems for years. I have also worked both for health insurers and for doctors doing the billing in the past, so I do have a more than passing knowledge on how they work.

[enough]

5. This is interesting. In my area, the Medicare Advantage plans are cheaper for comparable coverage

than Medigap plus prescription drug coverage . I signed up for Medicare Advantage (knowing it's not good public policy) because it was the more affordable option. I have all the same doctors, hospitals, etc. that I had before I signed up, most of whom have been our doctors for decades. (Before 65, my husband I were paying a fortune for private insurance as self-employed.)

We have seen no difference at all in our medical care, and are paying less than we would have for Medigap plus prescription drug coverage. I know the availability of different plans is different in different geographical areas.

[Cleita]

7. Medicare Advantage are always cheaper, but they don't deliver what they

promise in the long run. My husband could have died years ago because of a MA program and its arbitrary rules. We had to pay almost $10,000 in medical bills because they denied everything connected with him having a stroke because I didn't call them first to authorize going to an ER when we were on vacation out of the area. I had to put a call through on the only pay phone out in the woods that I could find, a couple of miles from our campsite and you can be sure I called 9/11 not the MA program. I put him back on traditional Medicare with medigap and we had no problems until the day he died. Yes, it was more expensive, but believe me what we saved before never paid back that $10,000. I work in a doctors office and hear daily from the old people that no doctors want to accept their MA plans even if they are on the list. The line they are given is that the doctors aren't taking new patients, so they have to pay cash up front.

btw many doctors will take them for old patients because they feel a sort of obligation but they don't accept any new patients.

[enough]

8. Thanks for the heads-up on this, Cleita. We'll keep our eyes open.

So far we aren't heavy users of the system, but at our age you never know when that bolt out of the blue will happen. I have been unhappy about using MA, because I don't believe in it in principle, but had to make a financial decision. Each year I revisit the issue, looking for a better arrangement. I will keep your perspective in mind.

I'm sorry about your experience and the loss of your husband. Hope you are doing okay now.

[juno jones]

6. K&R!

Good luck. :hug:

Thank you for saying what we're all thinking.

[lonestarnot]

10. Don't kid yourself about Congress, specifically the Senate. They understand.

They know, but they don't give a crap about us.