The Medicare 10 For 2022

This is Andy Thomas from the Masculine Journey Podcast where we discover what it means to be a wholehearted man. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just seconds.

Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network. Medicare, IRAs, long-term care, life insurance, investments, and taxes. Now, let's get started with Finishing Well. Finishing Well is a general discussion and education of the issues facing retirees. CardinalGuide.com, Cardinal Advisors, and Hans Shile CFP sell insurance.

This show does not offer investment products or investment advice. Oh, welcome to Finishing Well. Today with our certified financial planner, Hans Shile, today's show is entitled The Medicare 10 for 2022. And you're probably thinking, well, that's a mouthful. And it is. But the neat thing is that it lines up well with this concept biblically or in the Bible. Most people are aware that there were 10 commandments that were given in Exodus.

But what a lot of people don't realize is there's actually 613, what the Jewish people would call mitzvah. But the good news, really, really good news, is that Jesus pretty much said, well, what are the top two? And so we got this concept that the two that were the most important were, right, love the Lord your God with all your heart, with all your mind, and with all your strength, and love your neighbor as yourself. And the whole 10 are kind of fit together into those two. But I wonder how many of you, and including me, that would not have been able to tell you the rest of the commandment that had to do with loving my neighbor as thyself.

So the idea behind the show, obviously, is we want to give you the 10, but we're going to boil it down. But then it's also the details become very important, as just like in these commandments. So when you hear the rest of the love your neighbor as yourself commandment, just think, man, this is harder than it sounds.

So the way that actually re reads Leviticus 1918 is thou shalt not avenge nor bear any grudge against the children of thy people, but thou shall love thy neighbor as thyself. Well, when you add that little part to the beginning, you're like, wait a minute, if somebody cuts me off in traffic, I can't get even or that person that has been mean to my wife that I've been holding a grudge. You mean I got to let that go? Yeah, yeah. There's, there's details in there. And so when it comes to this Medicare 10, it really does fit well with that, doesn't it? It does. We were just struggling with this thing, because I made a video like I normally do, that we're going to put on YouTube that people can't see the screen and the board that are listening on the radio.

We did that as prep. And when you when you watch that, when I watch that video, and when you watch that video, a lot of details, a lot of facts. Frankly, I don't even know how good it was. I know what I was trying to accomplish. And it's almost like there's too many facts. And so but at the end of the video, I kind of sum it all up is that what you really need to do is buy the G plan, if you're going to buy one of these at all. Or if you want to save money, you might even want to take a serious look at just going the Medicare Advantage route. And then you can get a zero premium. What we're talking about today is people who, which is many of you, or it's going to be many of you, if you're under 65, who are on original Medicare Part A and Part B, you got a red, white and blue card, go to the doctor, you show them the red, white and blue card and covers 80% of your outpatient. When you go to the doctor, you have things not in the hospital, the Medicare covers 80%, you're responsible for the 20%. And then you have a supplement policy.

And that supplement policy picks up the 20% and more. And so what we're talking about today is really is that supplement policy and all your options, all your choices, kind of that's where all the details and facts that are, frankly, kind of boring, especially if you're just going to follow my advice, and you're going to buy a plan G. Yeah. But to some extent, you know, it's nice to know that there were, you know, that there's that much to begin with. And so there's that much to think about. But it's also nice to boil it down to where this is not going to be hard, you're going to come to a conclusion that's going to be simple. But it's nice to know that that that you know, the details, and there's obviously stuff that needs to be considered because to me, Hans, that the choice we make here, right, with a little bit of study will really help us with many choices when when we really need them when we need the insurance when we're sick, or we're like your friend, and jelly would say when we're bad sick. Yeah.

Well, yeah. And it's, you know, you make these decisions in your 60s, in your early 70s, or your 70s. And then you really use this stuff years later for a large bill when you're bad sick, as we, as jelly would say. And it's too late to make any decisions at that point. So you you want to make good decisions now so that you got proper coverage in place, and you don't have to be worried about that when you're going through a sickness or worried about the money end of it.

So let's dig into this. So what there are in 47 states in the United States, including North Carolina and South Carolina, and really the only states that are excluded from this Medicare 10 thing are Massachusetts and Wisconsin, and Minnesota, the other 47 states and the District of Columbia, subscribe to the Medicare 10. And it really means there's only 10 policies available. And they're exactly the same from company to company. So and this started in 1990. So to some extent, the changes they made back in 1990, which was just going to these 10 plans, and that's all the companies can sell, that's lasted 31 or 32 years, and I don't see a change in anytime soon. And the reason they did this is they were trying to make it easy for a consumer to understand this stuff, and to compare the differences between policies.

Because before 1990, I was in the business, I started in 1976. And so we would only study our company's policy, and they put some new fancy whiz bang on there, a couple of them. And we'd go out and we'd just tell the people, I don't know what you have now, but this is what you need. And we'd just change in people to our policy. And then somebody else would come back in and see them. And they'd say, oh, well, you know, you see those two whiz bangs, that's fine. We got those too.

But we've added this other new whiz bang. And so it was very confusing for people. And it lent itself to salespeople going out and misleading people. So they finally called a time out of most of all over the country. They just said, okay, these are the 10 policies that you can sell.

And that's where we are now. And they're named A, B, C, D, and so on and so forth. So when you decide you need to buy one of these, and for many of you, you already have one, and you've got like a plan F, or a plan G, or a plan N, or you don't know which plan you have, you just know you have a Medicare supplement. But if you'll get in your pocket and pull out the card from that insurance company, and you look on it, it'll say right on there, plan G, plan F, plan N, whichever one of the 10 you have. And so what I want to teach people is, first of all, you don't need to evaluate all 10 of them.

I mean, it's really boiled down for us to the F, the G, and the N. And I believe what we offered you, Ravi, and what you have is the G plan. Is that right? That is, that's correct. And you turned 65 last year. You've got a birthday coming up, don't you? Yeah, actually in two weeks, yeah.

Yeah. So you've been on it a year. And I just simplified this when I explained it to you. And the reason you picked G, or the reason I recommended it, it has the most benefit. I mean, if you just look at that chart that's in any of the books, or I'll send it to you, you can find it on my website. And you just look at all the checkmarks on there, the G has the most benefits. And then if you go back to a C plan or a B plan, I mean, every time you go downward on the chart, you're giving up things. And most people that are comparing these don't even understand what they're giving up. And from my perspective, if you're going to go Medicare Supplement, why wouldn't you just buy the best? Which gets back to the whole, you know, if you're sick, these you're going to need because the difference in price isn't all that great. Once you, you know, you're going to make this premium, you know, it's just obvious.

It seemed like a no brainer, obviously, when you really look at it. Well, yeah, that's true. I mean, like the example that we were talking about, showed the G plan for a guy who's not can't doesn't have a household discount.

So he's probably single a man, age 70, living in North Carolina. And he's buying a G plan was $118 a month with one company with the least expensive company. And then that same company would sell him an end plan and we put the prices right on the board $98. So it's $20 a month less. And it's only missing the end plan is only missing two benefits. And a lot of people will tell you that you really don't need those two benefits, you're going to be fine without them. And one of those benefits is the excess charges that a doctor could possibly charge. And the G plan reimburses you for those, the end plan doesn't.

And frankly, if they weren't important, they wouldn't be charging you 20 bucks a month. I can assure you, I experienced that this year already. Because, you know, one of the doctors I went to did do that. And, you know, obviously, I got the benefit because it was there. And it was really something simple.

It wasn't complicated. And the next thing you know, you can explain what that's called when the doctor charges more. But clearly, you know, it's something that happens a lot. Well, yeah, I mean, so so a doctor can really be in any one of three scenarios with Medicare, you have some doctors that don't take Medicare at all. But the reality is they can't treat any Medicare patients.

So that's not too many of them, some plastic surgeons. And so most doctors fit in the second category is they take Medicare, and they accept assignment of Medicare and accepting assignment means that they agree to lower their bill to whatever Medicare approves. And then Medicare is going to pay 80% of that your supplements going to pay 20%.

Then the third category is the doctors who accept Medicare, but they don't accept assignments. So they're saying we'll take Medicare, and we'll take what they charge, or we'll take what they send us for money. But we're going to bill the patient for the amount over that. And then there's limits and caps on that.

Let's not get into the details. The G plan pays that extra amount that a doctor that doesn't accept assignment, which a lot of the big time doctors, they don't, they're going to charge more. And so people will kind of lower that down. And my point is, is if you're going to start shaving off benefits, to get a lower plan with a Medicare supplement, then why don't we just take a look at you getting a Medicare Advantage plan, where we can possibly get a zero premium.

Yeah, exactly. And so you can see we got a whole mouthful to talk about today in the Medicare 10 for 2022. And so you know, it is helpful. The book, The Complete Cardinal Guide to Planning for and Living in Retirement, you know, outlines all these different plans and different details that if you have this interest, or these other YouTube videos, which are all under Cardinal Advisors, but the website that sponsors our shows cardinalguide.com, cardinalguide.com. So when we come back, we'll have more of the Medicare 10 for 2022. Christian or civic group contact Hans at cardinalguide.com.

That's cardinalguide.com. Welcome back to Finishing Well with certified financial planner, Hans Scheil. Today's show we're talking about the Medicare 10 for 2022. And so Hans, this is our fourth show that we've had in a row on this because it's a time of year where Medicare is front and center, right? Well, it is it started October 15. And it's going to go through December 7. And just for a quick review, what you can do from October 15 to December 7 is you can change your Medicare Advantage plan, you can enroll in a new one, and you're leaving original Medicare, you can purchase a drug plan, you can change your drug plan, or you can enroll in a brand new one. And that is going to start January 1. And that's not even what we're talking about today. But the reason we've done four shows on this is to really just get out on the airwaves, a lot of information about Medicare.

I'm thinking if some of you are like 58, 60, 62 years old, you might be getting tired of it. So I guess this will be good news is that next Saturday, we're going to be on to something back on our normal track. Those of you that find this interesting, you may want to go back and look at we've we've run four series is the first one, which was three weeks ago, we just talked about the whole program of Medicare and signing up and open enrollment. Two weeks ago, we talked about the prescription drug plans, the PDPs, the Part D plan. One week ago, we talked about the Medicare Advantage MAPD. And we dug into a specific plan of PPO plan right here in North Carolina. And then this week, we're talking about Medicare supplement Medigap policies combined with original Medicare.

I think it's been a good series. And I'm looking forward to getting on to some of the more advanced financial planning. Yeah, me too. Because as I was saying, I know, I guess because I'm, you know, turning 66 or whatever, I've gotten like six phone calls, you know, talking about Medicare. And so, you know, a big part of I think Hans's heart here is we don't want people to get misinformed thinking they got to do something when they don't necessarily have to do something like what in the case where you actually have one of these Medicare 10 plans, or also if they want to do something, why is this time special and all those things.

And so I'm really grateful for the added information this year to try to help us all understand this because there are so many like you call it alphabet soup, ABCD. I mean, it just it seems like the smartest people have the most problem with it. And I'm talking about people turning 65. They're just coming on Medicare. And they're picking up on my stuff out there in the media. And then they finally call me. And then I'm talking to them. And it's just the smartest people, you know, they see that I need an A, B, D, and then I want to get on that part G. And can I can I throw in a part D, and a plan D?

Are those the same? I mean, it just, you know, and people, it seems the smartest people, they try to wrap their arms around it. And, you know, I've spent my life learning what I'm learning. And I wouldn't recommend that for anybody else. It's just, you only need to know so much as a consumer.

But you need to know enough that you don't get taken advantage of, and that you can make good decisions for yourself. So what we're talking about today is Medicare Supplement, sometimes called specifically by the government Medigap. And the reason they use the word Medigap is these two things fit together like two gloves going in, and they're interwoven. So you got the basic Medicare benefits, which are very good. And then when you add the proper Medicare Supplement or Medigap plan, it just fills in the deductibles and copayments so that between the two, you have very little bills to worry about. What we're talking about today is getting you in the right Medicare Supplement with the right company at the right premium for you. You know, it's interesting to me, because when I started in this, whatever, two or three years ago, I had no clue Medicare would require something on top of Medicare to that I would need insurance on top of Medicare. But then then you get into all the difference between Medicare Advantage and these Medigap plans. But one of the things that people right now in this particular season see is that if you've got one of these, like where you've got the Medicare supplements, where you've got them one of the Medicare 10, then you still have a Part D to deal with. And it really blew my mind. And it still really does that if you don't enroll in that, you know, they find you for the rest of your life when you later enroll.

That's correct. I mean, if you stay off it for your whole life, you got no fine to pay, but you also have no benefits. If you don't sign up at the right time. And then you realize later that boy, I wish I had signed up.

And you're like 70. I mean, not only do they find you, they're going to make you wait to enroll. So you're going to go a while longer without coverage. And then you're going to pay a penalty.

And that penalty is going to last your whole life. That's a whole area that you need to get informed about. What I want to talk about is we put you on the Plan G, and you bought it because it has the most benefits. And it's like, if I'm going to go this Medicare supplement route, which allows you to go to any doctor that takes Medicare, you don't have to fool with networks like you do on Medicare Advantage plans. And it also gives you a very high level of reimbursement for your deductibles and copayments. So much so that the only thing you need to worry about is each year, the first 203 bucks, that's it. That and paying your premium, you're covered.

So you're real happy with that. Your premium has just gone up a little bit because it's your first policy anniversary. My guess is, is that it was probably 10, 12, 15 bucks a month.

Maybe you tell me, Robbie. Yeah, that's 12 bucks. Okay. And so we didn't pick the least expensive one last year, we picked from what we thought was the best company of the group of the least expensive.

It's pretty close to the least expensive, but now it's $12 a month higher. So it went from what to what, like 110 to 122? Exactly, exactly.

Okay. So just one year into this, we're going to rerun the numbers for you on all the Plan G's that they sell in your zip code. And you're going to be kind of shocked that you're going to probably discover, first of all, is that that same company that you bought from is going to have a price out there that's lower.

It's probably back at 107 or 108 or 109. It's with the same company. It's really not the same company because it's the same parent company, but it has a different... So these companies, before they get ready to raise rates on their older plan, they just introduce a new plan that they're selling out there in the public that people got to go through underwriting for, which you'll pass just fine. It's a little bit of a shell game where every few years they're introducing a new product at a lower rate, and then that allows them to raise the premium on the people that have had it for a while.

And so you're right in this situation now where you're going to have to decide whether it's worth pulling through the trouble this year to get your rate down. And if you do that, we're going to probably move you to a different company. The different company could be another major company that you've heard of, where you might look it out on the sheet and you just say, tell me about this company. Tell me, we've got 40 of them, and they all sell exactly the same G plan. And they all have different underwriting, which you'll be fine with all 40 of them. So we'll put the news of that off maybe for another show the next time we talk about Medicare.

But I can just tell you what it's going to say. Somebody is going to sell you a G plan for $105 to $110, and you're just going to need to decide is it worth $12 a month for the year to go through the hassle of changing or are you just going to pay the $122 a month for another year. And then when that goes to $135, we're still going to have somebody around $110 because there's going to be a whole, you know, you know, are you going to do this two or three years or are you going to do it every year? That's a service that we provide for people. And we just move them around. Why wouldn't you for exactly the same thing?

All right. And for some folks, they've been on the same Medicare supplement for 15, 20 years. And oh my goodness, there's one that would be a whole lot less if they, you know, called and checked and did what they needed to do, right?

Absolutely. And you'd be surprised how much of that we run into. And I'm going to tell you the reason that they do that is that people have, I got some of this in me, it's kind of the leave well enough alone.

You know, let's sleep in dog's lay is, is that if you, this stuff is so intimidating to people and so frightful that they've got this coverage and then they've used it. These people that have it 15 years as they had some incident so many years ago, or even the small stuff, it just pays so well, like it has for you. People are in love with that company that pays their medical bills so much so that they don't care how much they're paying for.

They say, I ain't touching that. That causes a lot of these people to keep these high premium coverage because they just want to leave well enough alone. And all I'm saying is when we finally sit down with them, they get kind of angry about it because they're saying, you mean to tell me that I'm paying $285 and this thing, it's $161 and 20 cents a month is exactly the same thing. And I say, it's exactly the same thing. You know, then it's like, why is that? And I said, if you've got a week to sit here and listen to me, I can tell you it just is. Then when we fill out the application and find out that 15 years later, they've got some health problems that they can't switch.

Then they're angry that they didn't do this five or 10 years ago. So point being that if you've had one of these things for a while, you need to shop it. You know, give us a call.

I mean, we're in all 50 States in the District of Columbia. You can send me an email at Hans at CardinalGuide.com. Tell me your age, tell me what plan you're on. And I'll just, I'll give you a printout.

I'll send it to you in the email that just says, here's the whole listing of everybody that sells a G plan, your zip code, or an F plan or whatever, whichever one you want to look at. Right. Because unfortunately, a lot of people that bought Medicare supplements, you know, their, their salesperson only represented one company and they had no idea that went, you know, that A, there were other plans that would have been maybe better for them and or B, you know, that that plan is way up on the list. So it's one of the advantages of, of having an independent agent who can look at 40 different companies and say, Oh, well, this is why, you know, this particular one is, seems to, you know, certainly be a better pick, both financially and coverage wise.

Sure. That, I mean, that's it. There's a lot of, lot of one company salespeople out there and they just, they sign you up for their one company and their one plan with their one premium. And people stick with that for years because it pays well. I'm just saying that if you can save a hundred bucks a month or 50 bucks a month or 90 bucks a month, we're taking a look at. Can you boil it down simply for us again, on the G plan, it means for me, if I'm, you know, just trying to get to the simple nuts and bolts, I'm not going to have to pay the deductibles on the hospital thing, which really had me worried. When I looked at the Medicare advantage, like what was it? $385 every day you're in the hospital. You're going to have no deductibles going in the hospital. It was on the Medicare advantage. It was three 95 a day for a maximum of five days, which is essentially two grand.

All right. That's the Medicare. That's a lot of money, right?

Well, it is. And on original Medicare, it's like $1,480, something about there, but your plan G supplement pays that 14. So if you go in the hospital, all your deductibles are covered and you're going to have no out of pocket between the Medicare, Medicare itself and your Medicare supplement. So, and then on the outpatient stuff, which is most things these days, even if you have a major thing, you know, I can sleep tonight in the hospital a lot of times, Medicare has an annual deductible of $203 this year. It's going to go up a little bit next year.

We don't know what it is yet, but it'll be small. And then after that, Medicare pays 80% and then your supplement pays 20%. And your supplement, the plan G also pays above the 100%. If the doctor does that balance billing or overcharging, you got coverage for that too. So when you have a major illness, you're out of pocket is 203 bucks and you can go to any doctor you want.

And that's worth paying the premium. So there you go again, lots more information in the other three shows that we've already done on this that would be on the podcast page you know, the podcast page at Cardinal guide.com. Or if you go to YouTube, you know, you've got Cardinal advisors where there's you know, all the videos on the same subject or of course, cons his book, the complete Cardinal guide to planning for and living in retirement.

So Hans is great time today. I appreciate it so much. God bless God bless finishing well as a general discussion and education of the issues facing retirees, Cardinal guide.com, Cardinal advisors and Hans Shyle, CFP sell insurance. This show does not offer investment products or investment advice. We hope you enjoyed finishing well brought to you by Cardinal guide.com. Visit Cardinal guide.com for free downloads of this show or previous shows on topics such as social security, Medicare, IRAs, long term care, life insurance, investments and taxes, as well as Hans best selling book, the complete Cardinal guide to planning for and living in retirement and the workbook. Once again, for dozens of free resources, past shows, or to get Hans book, go to Cardinal guide.com. If you have a question, comment or suggestion for future shows, click on the finishing well radio show on the website and send us a word. Once again, that's Cardinal guide.com, Cardinal guide.com.

This is the truth network. Say, what would you do if you were a new Christian and you didn't have a Bible? It's Michael Woolworth, by the way, from Bible league international. And you'd probably say, well, I'd hop in my car. I'd go to a Christian bookstore or have one shipped to me.

What if those weren't options? You'd say, well, I'm new to the faith. I mean, I need to know what it means to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus.

You know, you would pray that someone, anyone would bring you a Bible. And that's exactly the way it is for literally millions of Christians around the world. They're part of our spiritual family. They're new to the faith. They want to know what it means to grow in the grace and knowledge of Jesus. But God has them planning where it's very difficult to access a Bible. And that's why the truth network and Bible league have teamed up to send God's word to 3,500 Bible-less believers around the globe. Our campaign is called the world needs the word $5 sins of Bible, $100 sins, 20 every gift matched. Make your most generous gift by calling 800-YES-WORD, 800-Y-E-S-W-O-R-D, 800-YES-WORD or give at truthnetwork.com.