theabcsofmedicare

Senior Citizens, Sign Up Now: "Medicare Open Enrollment" Ends March 31

OK, I bet you thought "Medicare open enrollment¹" for 2013 ended December 7, 2012.

That's the conventional wisdom.  But actually enrollment time for Original Medicare is now through March 31, 2013 and those who sign up will start receiving their benefits beginning July 1, 2013.  And they'll start paying their Medicare Part A and/or B premiums (unless qualified for "free" Medicare Parts A and/or B) from that point in time forward. And they will start paying their Part A and/or B premium penalty (if due) from that point in time forward.

Medicare First Principles: The Democratic Double Cross--Medicare Already Is A Defined Contribution Plan

One of the central arguments over Medicare reform is that most reform proposals (Simpson/Bowles, Ryan/Rivlin, Wyden/Ryan) would turn Medicare from a defined-benefit¹ plan to a defined-contribution plan.

Simply, Democrats -- except apparently Bowles, Rivlin and Wyden -- are in favor of defined benefits.  And the nasty Republicans who want to push gramma over the cliff in her wheelchair are in favor of defined contributions. Democrats like "simply."

Unfortunately, what the Democrats simply aren't telling their voters is that Medicare is already a defined-contribution plan and it was the Democrats themselves that voted for making it that way while the Republicans voted against that approach.

Massachusetts Goo Goos Move to Screw Town/City Retirees on Pseudo Medicare

How typical of the Deval-Patrick/Barack-Obama-supporting goo goos of Massachusetts to recommend the cost shifting of huge sums onto Massachusetts municipal-government retirees¹ while at the same time claiming any minor similar tweak to Medicare to protect beneficiaries like me from Medicare's certain collapse within 10 years is caused by blood-sucking Republicans shoving grandma off the cliff in her wheelchair. This article relates to a Massachusetts-specific proposal affecting Massachusetts city and town retirees² but similar actions are happening all across the United States and the hypocrisy of the left in calling Congressman Ryan a liar when he proposes something and hailing Deval Patrick as the second coming when he proposes the very same thing... only more draconian... is breathtaking in its hypocrisy.

These changes, widely supported by the know it alls in the Massachusetts elite who are in the process of ruining the best health care system in the world, are basically the sorts of changes recommended by Wyden/Ryan in their December 2011 bi-partisan Medicare reform proposal.

Goo Goos Go Bonkers Realizing Medicare Sucks Compared to Obamacare

The goo goos at the far-left-wing Commonwealth Fund and Medicare Rights Center are going particularly apoplectic about the Medicaid to Medicare transition, proposing even more rules to make up for the rules that they supported which caused these so-called transition problems. Wait until the goo goos figure out the Obamacare to Medicare transition.

It's not new news to those of us 65 and over, particularly people from Massachusetts on Romneycare turning 65, that Medicare sucks... in terms of limited benefits and in terms of ultimate out of pocket cost to make up for those limited benefits.  But everyone else in the country -- particularly good government (goo goo) types that sing the praises of both Obamacare and "Medicare as we know it" -- is just realizing what the future holds and it ain't pretty. 

Here's the problem.  

New CVS Part D Medicare Drug Plans Failing to Deliver for Seniors

It's getting very little notice from the mainstream media, apparently waiting for the Obama administration to tell it what to say. But a whole slew of new CVS Part D Medicare Drug Plans are already apparently failing to deliver for seniors according to the following story in January 19th's South Florida Sun Sentinel. It begins:

“Federal healthcare regulators have halted new enrollments and marketing of CVS Caremark's SilverScript Medicare prescription coverage, and threatened to shut down the plans after a major system glitch left "tens of thousands" of seniors unable to get their medications this month, Medicare officials said."

These Silverscript plans scored very well on the Medicare bureaucracy's medicare.gov web site for many seniors this past annual enrollment period. As a SHIP volunteer, I probably signed up a dozen people on one of the Silverscript plans offered on Cape Cod. 

Medicare First Principles: Comparing Republican vs. Democratic Medicare

Medicare First Principles: What Medicare Really Costs and Who Pays

The above illustration is another misleading presentation of facts coming out of the recent annual release of National Health Expenditure data by the Medicare Office of Actuary (OACT)¹.  This version is courtesy of the far-left-wing Kaiser insurance company but I am not sure if Kaiser drew the pie chart using NHE data or if the propaganda arm of the Obama-administration Health and Human Services Commissariat released it. The nonsense also appears in Atlantic and other media without any editing or fact checking or even any attempt to think about it.

What ludicrous beltway navel-gazing.  

New Left-Wing Malarkey about Medicare: Let's Measure Per-Capita Costs

The far-left-wing media – typified by this post on HuffPo but there are many other similar illogical posts floating in the ether the week of January 13 – is totally misrepresenting recent Medicare Office of the Actuary (OACT) information concerning Medicare.  The biased media like Huffpo and WaPo is helped along by – or is helping along, depending on your perspective – the continuing propaganda mode of the political appointees in President Obama's Health and Human Services (HHS) Commissariat. Do not confuse the OACT with the HHS propaganda commissars, called in Orwell-speak, the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Planning and Evaluation (ASPE).

Here’s what the straight-shooting OACT gurus said in a January 2013 Health Affairs article  (subscription required for all but the abstract; I don't know why because the authors are government employees paid for with your tax dollars):

“Even as growth in spending at the national level has remained stable… There were also divergent trends in spending growth in 2011 depending on the payment source: Medicaid spending growth slowed, while growth in Medicare, private health insurance, and out-of-pocket spending accelerated.”

Democrats' Plan to Fix Medicare: Act Like an Insurance Company

A January 6 Washington Post editorial, the traditional house organ of the Democratic Party, has explained how the Democrats will fix Medicare.  Actually there is nothing new in the proposals¹ but it is the first time I've seem them all in the same place.

The Democratic party solution to Medicare reform is — drumroll, please — to

• Raise premiums on all seniors (not just the poor senior couple making more than $170,000  a year), deductibles and co-pays
• Reduce benefits particularly on home health care (well you can't get blood from a rock; hospitals have already been cut to shreds by Obamacare)

Isnt' this the party that is going to protect Medicare beneficiaries? The people protecting the middle class?  The people who want to save "Medicare as we know it" (which has never been possible since the passage of Obamacare anyways but it sounded good during the recent presidential campaign). 

You’d almost think the Democrats were a blood-sucking for-profit insurance company.

Medicare First Principles: Understanding Medicare Part D Standalone Drug Plans

One of the few parts of Medicare not affected by the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act of 2010 as amended (better known as Obamacare) was Part D standalone prescription drug coverage. Part D was implemented in 2006, and revised in 2010, and optionally provides Medicare beneficiaries, who -- at a minimum -- are signed up for Part A, various levels of prescription drug coverage. As noted in earlier Medicare First Principles posts (or see listing on right), Original Medicare does not include prescription drug coverage except for certain specialized drugs administered in outpatient environments.

Optionally is the key word in the previous sentence.

Medicare First Principles: Understanding Part C Medicare Advantage Strengths and Weaknesses

The correct juxtaposition of we seniors' two choices when it comes to Medicare are clearly outlined in the document "Medicare and You, 2013," sent to all Medicare beneficiaries in October 2012. 

The Election's Over but Left-wing Academics Keep Insisting on Misrepresenting Medicare Reform Proposals

In a previous post, I covered how a recent Dr.-Aaron-Carroll post on CNN.com was probably the most intellectually-stretched article in the whole Medicare/RyanCare reform debate. Carroll is one of The Incidental Economists on the left-wing blog of the same name. In that previous post I talked about Medicare because Carroll didn't. Now, however I find another article in the New York Times by another academic that beats Carroll for stretching research beyond the bounds.

The openning paragraph of the New York Times post by Princeton professor Reinhard telegraphs his constant bias when it comes to Part C Medicare health plans. The post begins:

"The roughly 50 million Americans covered by the federal Medicare program have a choice of receiving their benefits under the traditional, free-choice, fee-for-service Medicare program or from a private, managed-care Medicare Advantage plan."

The correct juxtaposition of the us seniors' two choices are clearly outlined in the document Medicare and You, 2013, sent to all Medicare beneficiaries in October 2012.  The choice is between

• Original (not traditional) unmanaged-care fee-for-service Medicare Parts A and B
• Managed care, capitated-fee Part C Medicare Advantage (there are other Part C health plans but Medicare Advantage is by far the most popular)

Higher 2013 Income Taxes: One More Way Seniors Lose Big under Obamacare

The 2010 Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act (PPACA) as amended, better known as Obamacare, ushers in one very direct and immediate effect¹ on seniors in 2013. PPACA increases the amount seniors (and everyone else) can deduct from income to that amount above 10% of income (it's 7.5% in 2012). That hurts seniors disproportionately because we seniors tend to have more potential medical-cost deductions that could be reflected on Schedule A, since

• most of us seniors pay a lot more of our income for health care insurance on a percentage of income basis 
• we seniors otherwise have large medical bills for things not covered by Medicare such as dental work, hearing aids and various eye surgeries

In addition, depending on what kind of supplemental insurance we have, we tend to have high co-pays and deductibles and potential catastrophic costs related to the healthcare services that Medicare does cover.