I Really Don't Medicare Much (Yet) Do U?
Nov. 1st, 2020 02:04 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
captainsblogAnother page of the calendar turns, and with it this time, an hour-earlier incantation of Rabbit Rabbit Rabbit:
(I think one of those rabbits will do, yes? No need for three.)
The wind has been howling all day, I've put the storm windows in the front and back doors, and the Bills are playing a mud bowl game in Orchard Park. We did our weekly park trip earlier, when it was mostly just a drizzle, this time checking out the boardwalk through an actual official local swamp:
Apparently we just missed the Smashing Pumpkins concert:
And, while most of the rest of life out there was similarly fall-en, there were a few signs of life hanging on, both flora-
- and fauna-
We didn't get much beyond that point as the drizzle turned into a fairly heavy pelting. It's going to be an inside day the rest of the way.
----
When I heard yesterday of the death of Sean Connery, I checked if we either had, or could stream, Hunt for Red October, which is probably our favorite film of his. No online options, but the library website said our main town branch had it. It apparently still does, but nobody in the building had any idea where it was, not even the librarian in a full witch costume who had neither a clue or a spell for finding it. So we continued a few Schitt's Creek episodes after trying the first couple of the new Nick Frost/Simon Pegg series Truth Seekers. We definitely warmed to the Canadian comedy after the first couple, and are hoping the scary British one will also grow on us.
That library is next to the town's early voting site, which as of late yesterday had hardly any line going into it. The early voting totals, here and around the country, have been encouragingly high, and despite constant Republican efforts to suppress or even reverse actions intended to make voting easier in a pandemic, people seem to understand how important this election is.
----
I have no in-person court this week, but plenty of it on the phone: tomorrow at 10, Tuesday at noon, Wednesday at 1 and an early one Thursday I will probably need to be in my Rochester office for. I also have to keep working two particularly annoying situations- one with a client, one with a debtor, who are taking up big chunks of my time with zero chunks of money to show for them so far.
Eleanor, meanwhile, is settling into the new parter-time work routine, now that her Wegmans health insurance is set for the rest of the time until she turns 65 and can go on Medicare. Last week she was scheduled for only an unusually low 14 hours, and while we can't sustain that little income until her Social Security starts up later this month (she's back to more like 20 hours this week and next, still down from the 30 she was consistently working to qualify for the health plan), she's found the time away from work to be much needed and a great stress reducer. If anything, when she's home, she's working just as hard, just not around a bunch of crowding and mask-grumbling COVIDiots. (The store had to go back to putting up more warning signs about customers staying suitably distanced from the register and from each other, and I'm guessing that as cases continue to go back up, they'll revert to the "triage queue" they had the first few months where you won't even be able to step up to a register until a coordinator directs you to one.)
On her "days off" since the beginning of October, Eleanor's been cleaning things that often get overlooked, organizing art and knitting supplies, stepping up her indoor gardening efforts,.... and getting ready to tame the hoary beast that will be arriving here in July: Medicare.
----
For those of us in our sixties, Medicare has been the Holy Grail of health care we've been preparing for (and paying for) since we were 18 or even younger. For me, while my own solo coverage is going slightly down in price, it's still going to be close to six grand a year out of pocket in premiums for a plan where most of the first $2,800 of costs comes right out of the same pocket (or the health savings account pocket, more accurately). Eleanor's is better- under a thousand deducted pre-tax with a $500 deductible that she usually meets by mid-year. Both of us get wellness benefits that don't cost out of pocket under Obamacare, but that hangs ever so delicately in the balance with a lawsuit to throw the whole thing out going before the newly-Handmaided Supreme Court next week. So the allure of the government-run coverage, so far immune from government attack on its own laws, is strong. But, as my mother used to say, the details are "compicated."
As they say down at the Social Security office, or at least the Medicare drive-through run by Wendy's, Parts is Parts. Part A is hospitalization, which is more or less premium free but limited to something you hope not to need. B is for the more day-to-day stuff, which involves a premium deducted from your monthly Social Security check if you're receiving one. Part C is the optional privatized portion, also known as Medicare Advantage, which the local Blues and Redshirts have been promoting like crazy during the current open enrollment period. And D, of course, is for Drugs, or possibly Donut Holes, which Obamacare finally eliminated until and unless Cheeto eliminates Obamacare. Between all of it, there's cost for the B and D parts, as well as deductibles and co-pays and maximums and minimums and it all sounds awfully like the private shit we're dealing with now.
Fortunately, or maybe not so fortunately, there are people not from the government who are here to help you.
Eleanor must have mentioned the M-word in one of her Facebook posts when she finally crossed the eligibility threshold for her final pre-Medicare work year. Almost within seconds, she started getting ads there for plans and options and a webinar to "help" with the choices. She signed up, and probably spent the equivalent of a full work week watching, rewatching and note-taking. The sponsor of this one was a so-called "concierge" service which, for a mere $800 or so a year, will do all the work for you, find you the Medigap or drug plans or other things you need in addition to your basic A and B, and save you, well, maybe something close to the mere $800 a year. (Results vary; their bill doesn't.)
Just to make this all even more brain-boggling, these add-ons come in, what else, more Parts is Parts. Yes, they are also called Parts, and they are also labeled by letter, only it's A through N (I think). Not all are available in all states, and there are restrictions and exclusions and deadlines.
Fortunately, all of this is almost a year away, so she's got lots of time to figure out what works best for her medically as well as for us financially- and it will make my own groundwork four years from now MUCH easier to navigate. We just have to keep up hope that the good guys win this week- and reverse the craziness of the bizarre bribe that "eliminated" the payroll tax that pays for all of this in exchange for some empty promise to fund Social Security and Medicare from some unspecified "general fund" source.
I want something that's so simple, even a killer rabbit can understand it.
(I think one of those rabbits will do, yes? No need for three.)
The wind has been howling all day, I've put the storm windows in the front and back doors, and the Bills are playing a mud bowl game in Orchard Park. We did our weekly park trip earlier, when it was mostly just a drizzle, this time checking out the boardwalk through an actual official local swamp:
Apparently we just missed the Smashing Pumpkins concert:
And, while most of the rest of life out there was similarly fall-en, there were a few signs of life hanging on, both flora-
- and fauna-
We didn't get much beyond that point as the drizzle turned into a fairly heavy pelting. It's going to be an inside day the rest of the way.
----
When I heard yesterday of the death of Sean Connery, I checked if we either had, or could stream, Hunt for Red October, which is probably our favorite film of his. No online options, but the library website said our main town branch had it. It apparently still does, but nobody in the building had any idea where it was, not even the librarian in a full witch costume who had neither a clue or a spell for finding it. So we continued a few Schitt's Creek episodes after trying the first couple of the new Nick Frost/Simon Pegg series Truth Seekers. We definitely warmed to the Canadian comedy after the first couple, and are hoping the scary British one will also grow on us.
That library is next to the town's early voting site, which as of late yesterday had hardly any line going into it. The early voting totals, here and around the country, have been encouragingly high, and despite constant Republican efforts to suppress or even reverse actions intended to make voting easier in a pandemic, people seem to understand how important this election is.
----
I have no in-person court this week, but plenty of it on the phone: tomorrow at 10, Tuesday at noon, Wednesday at 1 and an early one Thursday I will probably need to be in my Rochester office for. I also have to keep working two particularly annoying situations- one with a client, one with a debtor, who are taking up big chunks of my time with zero chunks of money to show for them so far.
Eleanor, meanwhile, is settling into the new parter-time work routine, now that her Wegmans health insurance is set for the rest of the time until she turns 65 and can go on Medicare. Last week she was scheduled for only an unusually low 14 hours, and while we can't sustain that little income until her Social Security starts up later this month (she's back to more like 20 hours this week and next, still down from the 30 she was consistently working to qualify for the health plan), she's found the time away from work to be much needed and a great stress reducer. If anything, when she's home, she's working just as hard, just not around a bunch of crowding and mask-grumbling COVIDiots. (The store had to go back to putting up more warning signs about customers staying suitably distanced from the register and from each other, and I'm guessing that as cases continue to go back up, they'll revert to the "triage queue" they had the first few months where you won't even be able to step up to a register until a coordinator directs you to one.)
On her "days off" since the beginning of October, Eleanor's been cleaning things that often get overlooked, organizing art and knitting supplies, stepping up her indoor gardening efforts,.... and getting ready to tame the hoary beast that will be arriving here in July: Medicare.
----
For those of us in our sixties, Medicare has been the Holy Grail of health care we've been preparing for (and paying for) since we were 18 or even younger. For me, while my own solo coverage is going slightly down in price, it's still going to be close to six grand a year out of pocket in premiums for a plan where most of the first $2,800 of costs comes right out of the same pocket (or the health savings account pocket, more accurately). Eleanor's is better- under a thousand deducted pre-tax with a $500 deductible that she usually meets by mid-year. Both of us get wellness benefits that don't cost out of pocket under Obamacare, but that hangs ever so delicately in the balance with a lawsuit to throw the whole thing out going before the newly-Handmaided Supreme Court next week. So the allure of the government-run coverage, so far immune from government attack on its own laws, is strong. But, as my mother used to say, the details are "compicated."
As they say down at the Social Security office, or at least the Medicare drive-through run by Wendy's, Parts is Parts. Part A is hospitalization, which is more or less premium free but limited to something you hope not to need. B is for the more day-to-day stuff, which involves a premium deducted from your monthly Social Security check if you're receiving one. Part C is the optional privatized portion, also known as Medicare Advantage, which the local Blues and Redshirts have been promoting like crazy during the current open enrollment period. And D, of course, is for Drugs, or possibly Donut Holes, which Obamacare finally eliminated until and unless Cheeto eliminates Obamacare. Between all of it, there's cost for the B and D parts, as well as deductibles and co-pays and maximums and minimums and it all sounds awfully like the private shit we're dealing with now.
Fortunately, or maybe not so fortunately, there are people not from the government who are here to help you.
Eleanor must have mentioned the M-word in one of her Facebook posts when she finally crossed the eligibility threshold for her final pre-Medicare work year. Almost within seconds, she started getting ads there for plans and options and a webinar to "help" with the choices. She signed up, and probably spent the equivalent of a full work week watching, rewatching and note-taking. The sponsor of this one was a so-called "concierge" service which, for a mere $800 or so a year, will do all the work for you, find you the Medigap or drug plans or other things you need in addition to your basic A and B, and save you, well, maybe something close to the mere $800 a year. (Results vary; their bill doesn't.)
Just to make this all even more brain-boggling, these add-ons come in, what else, more Parts is Parts. Yes, they are also called Parts, and they are also labeled by letter, only it's A through N (I think). Not all are available in all states, and there are restrictions and exclusions and deadlines.
Fortunately, all of this is almost a year away, so she's got lots of time to figure out what works best for her medically as well as for us financially- and it will make my own groundwork four years from now MUCH easier to navigate. We just have to keep up hope that the good guys win this week- and reverse the craziness of the bizarre bribe that "eliminated" the payroll tax that pays for all of this in exchange for some empty promise to fund Social Security and Medicare from some unspecified "general fund" source.
I want something that's so simple, even a killer rabbit can understand it.
no subject
Date: 2020-11-01 11:44 pm (UTC)I am so sorry that you all have to deal with that bullshit... and you're in a financially pretty secure position. I can't even imagine how awful it would be to be poor and sick and trying to deal with all that crap.