More Government-Funded PBS Nonsense about United States Medicare

I have seen almost a half-dozen articles about so-called Medicare open enrollment by the same author on the main Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) web site and this author is providing readers really bad advice. There are many misinterpretations of the Medicare rules and some outright incorrect statements concerning Medicare in the articles (some of which are the same with different titles). In one of the articles, the author says that no one in the Medicare  bureaucracy would talk to him or her to help prepare the articles. The author should have waited until they would.

In one article, the author spends most of the blogpost real estate commenting on and criticizing some mythical capability in the Medicare Plan Finder to "tailor your plan choices."  What the author is talking about is the option to sort the list of plans available to the beneficiary in various ways. (The author also appears to be mixing up Part C plan lists and Part D plan lists.) There is no tailoring of plans possible; you can only choose one of the sort criteria. The plans are the plans as approved months ago by the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.

It is unbelievable how the author has made a very simple process incredibly confusing. This is also not surprising; this whole series of articles appear to be part of the Democratic Party program to repeal Parts C and D of Medicare. One of the Democratic Party arguments for repeal is that Part D is too confusing. The Plan Finder is pretty simple. (I am assuming  a senior would not online with the Plan Finder if he or she did not also use Amazon or Expedia or Facebook.) All the beneficiary has to do is enter three items (or five if more precision is desired):

-- his or her zip code

-- detailed current Medicare status if desired

-- welfare status if desired

-- drug list, and

-- "preferred" pharmacy or pharmacies.

In the effort to follow the left-wing playbook of making all of this sound incredibly confusing to others like the author who are not on Medicare (and apparently who have never bought insurance), the author has left out two key pieces of information:

1. Even if you take no drugs, you have to enter one drug in the Plan Finder in order to proceed. If you are one of the few Medicare beneficiaries who takes no drugs, enter a low cost generic such as Atenolol. (And in general -- but not always -- you should sign up for a Part D plan if you have no other creditable coverage in order to protect yourself for the future and lower the cost you would otherwise pay should you have to buy in later.)
2. "Preferred pharmacy" has two meanings. You can simply prefer a pharmacy because it is close to your home or you like Waldo the druggist or whatever. But there are also plans that provide better prices at the plan's preferred pharmacy. So even if you like Waldo a lot, also put CVS or Walgreen's and/or your local big box store with a pharmacy on your preferred list. If the price difference is not large you can still go down to see Waldo and have a frappe at the soda fountain while you're there.