Sincere Post Here to Hopefully Help Others Make a Decision for Medicare*
- This is coming from someone with many years experience in the health insurance business and also is aware of how the super polished advertisements you see on TV by the main health insurance payers and eHealth dotcom, which push Medicare Advantage. Spoiler: This unpaid “Commercial” is for Traditional Medicare with Medigap Plan.
3 False Narratives:
Proponents for MA will:
1: Try to convince you that they have large provider networks to ensure your claims get approved.
REFUTE:
However, many provider groups have chosen to no longer contract with Medicare Advantage due to the slowness of payers to pay them and also the many hoops the providers have to jump through. Also, many Provider Directories are out of date and there is constant movement.
Short of it is, if you sign up again with Medicare Advantage, you might receive a “surprise” bill in the mail that your health services were provided by someone no longer in their network.
But with Traditional Medicare with a Medigap Plan you do not have to worry about any such “surprises.” Because in essence every licensed provider is considered in-network, so to speak.
Proponents for MA will:
2: Erroneously contrast themselves against Traditional Medicare with the dental, optical, aspect and also bait you in with “everything is rolled up into one neat package” speel and also offer you all kinds of extraneous stuff like free gym memberships, free grocery debit card, etc.
REFUTE:
First of all, purchasing dental and optical insurance separately is not terribly expensive nor difficult. And it is not difficult to sign you up for Traditional Medicare and to purchase you a Medigap plan, without needing to undergo underwriting if your MA plan was terminated at no fault of your own.
As to free gym memberships and free grocery debit cards, those are niceties but true purpose of health insurance is covering any expensive unexpected health claims covered. Think unexpected catastrophic things such as Cancer, Cardiovascular Issues, Organ Transplants, Rare Diseases, Knee Replacements, Diabetes, etc. Will for-profit health insurance have your health outcomes in mind or their profits? And I assume you don’t want any surprise bills that could bankrupt you.
eHealth dotcom, will:
3: Tell you that they are paid by the health insurance corporations to compare and offer their plans, which is true. However…
REFUTE:
EHealth completely omits mentioning Traditional Medicare and does not offer any comparison nor offer assistance to switch over to Traditional Medicare with a Medigap plan. They are financially biased towards MA plans.
Disclaimer: I am not a licensed agent for Medicare. These are my own personal opinions. Please make decisions for what plan works best for you.
Traditional Medicare with Medigap Plan
https://www.medicare.gov/providers-services/original-medicare