Medicare Prayer (Medicare Advantage)

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You're listening to the Truth Network and Truth Network dot com. Welcome to finishing well brought to you by Cardinal Guide dot com with certified financial planner Hons. Shiell, best selling author and financial planner, helping families finish well for over 40 years on finishing well. We'll examine both biblical and practical knowledge to assist families in finishing well, including discussions on managing Social Security, Medicare IRH, long term care, life insurance, investments and taxes. Now let's get started with finishing well.

So have fun today is finishing well, show it certified financial planner, hon showers, Medicare prayer.

And so we're just gonna fire right out of the beginning with this prayer that, you know, Hunton, I put together that we hope you'll pray along with us, as we can clearly see that in order to get this or any other financial decision. Right. We can only do that with the help of God. So Jesus, Father, we we thank you so much for this season of life called Medicare that that we're now entering into. And we pray that that it would bring us into a more intimate relationship with you as we navigate what are some new decisions and things that require your wisdom. Lord, we we we asked for your wisdom in making this decision through, you know, part A and Part D and those things that seem like alphabet soup to us. Lord, we ask that you would send godly people with advisors into our lives to help us to to make better decisions. And Lord, to honor you with our resources, but also to, you know, care for our loved ones who are going to be going through these things with us as our health declines, that they, too, wouldn't feel stress as part of the way that you give us wisdom in this time. We're counting on you for all that. And we ask this in Jesus name and for his glory. Amen. It's a hands along those lines.

You know, it'd be really good to get God's wisdom when it comes to this part A, part B, part C. You know what? What all is involved in that. And and, you know, we've talked to a bunch of times actually about part A and part B and, you know, Medicare supplements. But Part C, I don't know that we've ever really done a deep dove.

Yeah. And that's what we're going to do today. I. I mean, I just want to state that part of the problem here that's created by us people in the industry that deliver these Medicare products or solutions to the customers is this stuff just comes at consumers. I mean, when you're sixty four and a half. Have you noticed how much mail you've gotten over the last.

I have. I've gotten lots of e-mails. Lots of lot of people would like to to provide me with some Medicare help. Have you gotten phone calls? Yes. Oh, my goodness. Yeah. Just who are they from? United Healthcare, Aetna, Blue Cross Blue Shield. You know, they're there. People want to come over to your house and they never got that far because I usually answer with I got it all taken care of.

Thank you for calling. Yeah, well, in they're gonna be showing up on your doorstep. Have you prepared Tammy for that? Oh, I actually haven't. But they are absolutely. There's going to be a few people between now and October 1st that are gonna show up. In fact, it's most likely in this period forward. So anyhow, we kind of got off on that track. But, you know, as you can see, that I've been offering Medicare supplements. I could see selling Medicare supplements and Medicare Advantage plans for. It was 44 years this month. So I've been around the industry for a while. And what I'm just going to say is this stuff comes at you when you're turning 65 like you are right now. It just and people many times are just you know, I've noticed you can just kind of like you're kind of sit back and see. I've said no thank you. I'll take care of people tend to not be real happy about that. Okay.

Solicitation is, you know, for salesmen especially I don't know, it's funny that we would be offended by it after all that we've done all over the years.

But it's it's it's it's kind of you feel so that it's coming at you. And then you have not really because you have the benefit of the show and the education, but a lot of people don't. And it's just there. And it just starts. I mean, they know in the back of their mind that Medicare is coming up. They got to do something.

You know, it's funny to me about that very thing. And I'm really grateful for the prayer itself, because as I think about it, if if I did not know you two years ago or this and I had not done this, I would have been dreading Medicare. I would have been dreading having to do these decisions. I it really would have been like, oh, you know, this is a tough season coming up. I don't want to think about the fact that I'm going on Medicare, what it means and all those ramifications.

But as a result of doing the show, I was pumped up man like on the 1st of July, I went right to Social Security that govern. And I was actually excited like, oh, this is going to be really good for my family.

It's gonna be really good for my health care. And you know that. And I think about the way that, you know, based on your book and your involvement in my life completely changed the season from being something that I was dreading actually to something that I was excited about.

So so this stuff's coming at you. You know, you most people haven't had the benefit of the show. They're a bit put off by it. They know they kind of need to talk to somebody. And so they just they kind of put it aside. They put it on a stack a bit. Have you thrown that stuff away or have you saved? No, I threw it away. You threw it away. But most people save it because they really feel like they got to read that. Know it all says the same stuff in some of those things are big packets. The ones from the Medicare Advantage companies are a whole big eight and a half by eleven. Yeah, but envelopes and they're stuffed with they got books in annuals. OK. So people are never gonna read that. So where I'm going is, is people generally have a lack of understanding about how the whole program works.

Medicare. What they need to do about it. What they need to sign up for it. And there's a whole bunch of choices embedded in here. And I would suppose that if people don't do things in the right order and they don't get in the right attitude getting ready for this, they're going to end up making some poor choices, choices that they're going to come to regret later as they begin to understand it. That's why we need a prayer and we need God's help to lead us in the right direction. So if he's led you here today, we're going to try to raise and we're going to raise your level of understanding about Medicare. So Medicare has four parts to it as part A, which is your hospital coverage and skilled nursing. Part B, which is your doctor and outpatient everything besides the hospital, essentially medically. Which is where a lot of your bill tends to be. And for many years, that's all there was, was part and part B and what they call original Medicare all along about 2005. The Bush administration wanted to outsource Medicare. They wanted to experiment with that, which is can't a private contractor do a better job of delivering Medicare than we do inside of the government?

So that's when a Medicare Advantage Part C was born and part D, Part D is the drug plan.

And that's really what the Bush administration promised, that in the 2004 election. They promise drugs for the seniors because you didn't have drugs before that. So do you want to get angry about Part D? There was nothing before that. And people were very quickly complaining about Part D and the donut hole and all that kind of stuff. So I'm just giving you a little history here.

You got A, B, C and D, if you're on Medicare, you got to have A. And you've got to have B. And even if you're going to go for C, you've got to have A and B first. You can't get C without having A and B first.

And you don't ever have to get C, you can say I don't want any part of this outsourcing business. I want to just stay on and be original Medicare. What do I need to do? From there in which you need to do from there, you need to look into supplementing it because Medicare with no extra coverage is a problem. And specifically, under Part B, you've got 80 percent coverage and you have no cap on the 20 percent, that's your responsibility. And that could get into the tens of thousands of dollars. So if you're going to stay on original Medicare, A and B, you need to purchase a supplement. And that's another show, another discussion. And then once you're purchasing a supplement, you need a bunch education. You don't need to buy the first thing that comes along or really take the whole person. Stick is one of these people you let in your house.

Right.

You're not letting anybody know they're coming in. No. But but nonetheless.

So what we're talking about today is part C. Medicare Advantage. So what is it? Well, there's there's really four or five main companies that really dominate this business. The Medicare Part C Advantage plans. And they're really the outsourcers or the receiving of the outsource. That's United Health Care, which is sponsored by AARP, Humana, which probably runs the most TV commercials. Aetna, which is now owned by CBS. I always thought the insurance company was going to buy the drugstore. Let me tell you what just happened. The drugstore bought the insurance company.

One of the largest ones in the country. So it's CBS now owns Aetna.

And Aetna is a big provider of this. And then you got Cigna and then you have Blue Cross. And you really when you take those five providers, you know, you don't need to research all five of them. And most people don't. Are not even exposed all five most people's research when they want to buy one of these Parsees is just is the luck of the draw ads. Whoever calls on year gets to you, whether that's the United Health Care person or the whoever, they're just going to explain their benefits to you. So what I want to let you know is in most zip codes across this country, there's a choice.

And most of these plans, all five of them are available in most of the United States. So certainly a lot and most in North Carolina. So just know, this is when you're getting talked into one of these things are getting sold. There's several other choices where you're doing the same thing. You're outsourcing it, but it's to a different plan with a different company. Now, what we do inside a cardinal is we have availability. I don't want to say all the Medicare Advantage plans because some of the real small ones that we don't view as significant. We don't have them because we've got to send them a certain amount of business. So we we limit ourselves to the four biggest ones. And then we're experts and we can offer them. And, you know, that's three more than most people offer. Most agencies like ours just sell for one of these things. So, you know, so. So what is it? And we're gonna be getting back after we come back to the break from the break. I'm going to talk to you about now that you've decided that you want to go this direction now. What are your choices within this?

So this show, Medicare Prayer, is going to be a podcast. So if you missed the beginning of the prayer and you want to hear that prayer or something, you can always says to the podcast. And of course, it's brought to you by Cardinal Guide dot com. And Hans's book, The Complete Cardinal Guide to Planning for and Living in Retirement, which talks about all this stuff in great detail. And both the book and the workbook are available.

All you can do is e-mail hands and ask form or get the free PDAF or however you want to get about doing that. You just go to the Web site. Cardinal Guide dot com. We'll be right back. We'll be right back. And we'll be right back.

But a lot more finishing. Well, we got to finish. Well, unfinished. We'll be back.

Hans and I would love to take our show on the road to your church, Sunday school, Christian or Civic Group. Here's a chance for you to advance the kingdom through financial resources and leveraging Hommes expertize in qualified charitable contributions, veterans aid and attendance, iRace, Social Security, Medicare and long term care. Just go to Cardno Kayak.com and contact Hohns to schedule a live recording of finishing well at your church Sunday School. Christian or Civic Group Contact Hons and Cardinal Guy eCom. That's Cardinal Guide ARCOM.

Welcome back to finishing well, certified financial planner Hans Shiell. Today show we're talking his Medicare prayer, which we actually prayed that prayer. We would love for you to pray along with us. You can get the podcast. You know, at any bridges, go to Cardinal Geico Common and all the shows are listed there, including Medicare prayer.

So meanwhile, hands, what what are some of the advantage? I mean, it's called Medicare Advantage. Why is it an advantage for some?

Well, for starters, you're going to most likely have either a zero premium or zero out of pocket or you're going to have a small out of pocket like 20, 30 bucks a month.

We're. With a Medicare supplement, an original Medicare, you're gonna be paying one hundred bucks a month or more for your Medicare supplement. So right off the bat, you're gonna be saving money. In terms of your you know, your monthly outlay to be on the plane, OK. The next reason is unlike original Medicare Part B. You're going to have a cap on your out of pocket. So all of these Medicare Advantage plans, they have to the government, they have to have a maximum out of pocket. Much like your group, insurance has been up where you were working five, six, seven thousand dollars. So when you're out of pocket is that much. Now it becomes 100 percent coverage. You don't have any more out of pocket. And that's clearly an advantage.

It's an advantage. But, you know, I think it would be safe to say this is why I haven't to, you know, a supplement versus I mean, I'd rather pay one hundred. This is me. You know, in Meister's circumstances, I'd rather pay one hundred and whatever dollar.

Any bucks. Yeah. You know, a month or a year. Well, excuse me. I'm thinking the part B deductible. Right. Your maximum out of pocket is one hundred ninety eight bucks.

Right. Because I'm, I'm part B and so I know I'm a maximum out of pocket. Seven thousand dollars. And so there's that kind of the trade out. Right. Coming out of the chute. So if you go on with a Medicare supplement, you don't have this exposure of of this tremendous amount of money that you would have on a Medicare is seven thousand dollars.

Right. I mean, six, seven, eight, something tremendous. But it's a number.

And if you're looking at a Medicare Advantage plan and you're considering one, as you want to know what that number is and if you're looking at it with us, we'll tell you. OK. Now. What the government's doing is they're comparing. The Medicare C Advantage plans to just original Medicare Part D. in Part B with no supplement. That's all the government. They don't even look at the fact that people have supplements. So they're saying this Medicare Advantage Part C is better than original Medicare because you've got a cap of seven thousand dollars and you've got no cap on your other deal on your original Medicare. So it just a lot of this is there's a reason why this is confusing, folks, and it just is reason why we need God's help. And I need his influence to try to explain this to you in somewhat of a way that you can walk away from this and you really know what you have, because it's just it's so confusing. So we're on Medicare Part C, we're on the advantages. The advantage is going to be that you're not going to have a premium or you're gonna have a very small premium. Then secondly, you've got a coverage limit or a maximum out-of-pocket. The next thing is most of these come with some dental and some vision and some hearing. Possibly they come with a number of wellness benefits, which is Nate Silver, silver sneakers, that kind of thing.

I thought they were gold. Silver. Oh, yeah. I like that golden sneakers. I mean, some of them eliminated silver sneakers and then, you know, they had us on a webinar. Like, is she really saying that? I mean, they're going to mail you a little packet of things that you can call up the 800 number and you can do this in your living room. You can dog to us, lady. It's almost like Twister's, I'd imagine. And, you know, that's a well as part of a book. There's a lot of silver sneakers benefits like that, which some of them are really good. I've seen some of these were they they have rides from to doctor's appointments. I mean, so they can add on and be fairly extreme. That's not real common. But they can add on a number of things to make these attractive.

And then, of course, what goes without saying is you get a part D drug plan included in most of these. It's just I mean, it just comes with it. So that has an upside and a downside. The upside is that you don't have to pay anything for it. The downside is you don't get to pick. You just get whatever drug plan they're putting out. OK. So but overall, for the right people, this this is this is fine. And what I also want to point out, and this just adds another layer of confusion. There is such thing as a supplementary plan. It's not a Medicare supplement. So I probably shouldn't even use the word supplement. But that's what it is, is it's a extra insurance policy that's going to fill in the gaps of your Medicare Advantage plan. And that's not going to be as expensive as a Medicare supplement. It's going to be 40, 50 bucks a month. And it's going to it's going to give you some indemnity benefits when you go in the hospital or you go to the doctor.

Well, when you talk about that Part D, one thing of the things I learned in my recent adventure into Medicare is that like, wow, if you don't sign up for Part D, when you sign up for Medicare down the road, they start charging you a fine.

I mean, yeah, yeah, it's called a penalty. And the penalty grows for every month that you didn't have it when you should've had it. OK. We really from there ourselves. I should add it. Right. Yeah.

Well I mean that's going to start for you three months after October 1st. So they give you this little grace period. Or maybe it's two months, but it's you know, there's just a date. It's either like December 1st or January 1st. And they're going to count every month. And you could go years without one. I just wrote a lady a policy. She'd never had a supplement for five years. She's 70 years old and buying it for the first time. And the lady I told you about. And she bought that. And then she has to wait until open enrollment, which starts in October, and then it won't go into effect till January 1st to buy Part D plan or said doesn't bother her because she and won't want anyhow until I just told you need to get this. And then when I told her she's going to have to pay a penalty and then I couldn't tell her how much that is, Medicare is going to. I could have sat down and guessed at it. But look, I you know, I only want this so bad. I mean, she's got to wanted a little bit. So I'm just telling her that, you know, she needs to do it now because if she waits another couple of years, what if she got cancer? And then in the middle of the year and then they get some really expensive cancer drug. Some of those can be, you know, five hundred bucks a month. A thousand bucks a month. Oh, yeah. Worn. She got no part D plan. And then she has to wait, you know, like six months, like she does now before she can get it in effect. And then then she's going to be paying the penalty for seven years or however many years. So, you know, you bring up a great point. You need to get enrolled in a Part D plan when you turn 65 or you need to have Part D type coverage from a group company or something. And you need to be able to prove that to them when you later enroll.

But getting to the actual advantages, because I think, you know, in the case, my mother in law, you know, she turned 80 almost, you know, here shortly and her Medicare supplement just kept going.

You know, boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And next thing you know, when that starts to get like four or five hundred dollars, all of a sudden, if you're financially unable, Medicare Advantage looks like the deal.

Sure. Sure. And so there's no underwriting with Medicare Advantage. So when it comes open enrollment time, you can make this change into this and you can say bye bye to that for 500 bucks a month. You you could consider one of these supplements to your Medicare Advantage, which maybe at 80 might be 75 bucks a month, but it might be something she wants to look at, could get her out of a tough situation. It's more like budgeting for three or four or five thousand dollar expense and so much a month at a time. So I want to I don't want to present these like they're bad. But, you know, that's kind of it on the advantages we've we've listed them. And the disadvantages are that you've got to go to their doctors and their hospitals. So you've got a network. And with Medicare, you don't have that. Your network has anybody that takes Medicare in the United States, which is most doctors, so. So, you know you know, when you buy Humana plan, you're limited to Humana is network and he manages hospitals. And if you buy a PPO from Humana, then you can go out of network and you just pay a penalty for that. So you've got to pay more out of pocket. But if you buy an HMO and whether you buy that from Humana or UnitedHealthcare, they also age HMOs, as with an HMO. You can't go out of network. I mean, it's just those are your doctors and your hospitals. So, you know, these things don't travel well. So people that spend part of the year in Florida are people that go on long vacations around the country.

Probably not just for people like me who have no clue what is PPO and HMO preferred provider organization.

That's a PPO. And that just means they prefer you to go to this doctor and the way they show you, they prefer you as they pay more of it. OK. OK. An HMO is a health maintenance organizations and that means that this is your. This is it. This is these are your people that are going to care for you. And that's it.

And so I'm I I'm assuming. But I'll make sure. So if I was going to buy save from Blue Cross Blue Shield, a PPO, it would probably be more expensive than their HMO.

Probably. Right. Or another way to put it, instead of being more expensive. The HMO might offer richer benefits. OK. Because the premium might be zero on both home amount per day.

And obviously, a question we need to ask, is this a PPO? Is this an area home? And who are these doctors? And if you're not in a city, if you're out the country, these things make a difference, right?

Oh, huge. And the thing would you really want to go back to the way I've set up my business, which is to offer four of these big companies? You know, all over the United States and doing it by phone so that at the very least we can sit down and first decide, you want to go this route. And then if you want to go this route, which one of these four companies do you want to buy the plan from? And then within each of the companies, they minium have HMO and PPO. And I don't really like selling the HMO is because just sures the world. Somebody, you know, just is going to need to go to some doctor somewhere out of there or some hospital. And I just they have a provision for emergencies, but it's just I'm not real thrilled with those.

So you can see we're out of time. We barely touch it. That's why we need prayer for Medicare. Yeah, and that's what the show was today. Again, all these resources, Hohns, this book, The Complete Cardinal Guide to Planning for Living in Retirement. It's a cardinal guide. Don't forget the guide after Cardinal Dot com. All the episodes, we've done a lot of shows on Medicare.

And God wants to guide us through these. So fun show today. Thank you. Thank you.

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