Hello, this is Matt Slick from the Matt Slick Live Podcast, where I defend the Christian faith and lay out our foundations of the truth of God's Word. Your chosen Truth Network Podcast is starting in just a few seconds. Enjoy it, share it, but most of all, thank you for listening and for choosing the Truth Podcast Network.
This is the Truth Network. Welcome to Finishing Wealth, brought to you by CardinalGuide.com, with certified financial planner, Hans Shiel, best-selling author and financial planner, helping families finish well for over 40 years. On Finishing Wealth, we'll examine both biblical and practical knowledge to assist families in finishing wealth, including discussions on managing social security, Medicare, IRAs, long-term care, life insurance, investments, and taxes. Now, let's get started with Finishing Wealth. Welcome to Finishing Wealth, with certified financial planner, Hans Shiel, and today's show is Medicare Annual Enrollment 2024.
Apparently it starts October 15th through December 7th, and you know, it's interesting to me that I'm sure that everybody is aware that all of a sudden you start getting a lot of calls and you start seeing commercials, you know, coming up here in the next few weeks, and all this stuff is pushing this annual enrollment period, and what exactly does that mean? And I think you're going to see a lot of differences in 2024 for a lot of reasons that Hans is going to cover with you, but I don't know that you've ever noticed that the enemy, he changes, about the time you get one of his tactics figured out, then he changes tactics, and I think we're there with some things we're going to talk about on the show today, but I just think that one of the reasons that that happens is God really wants you to check with him every time, and there's a wonderful, wonderful story in 2 Samuel chapter 5 where, you know, King David was up against the Philistines, as he was so many times, and he asked God, you know, what do I do? And they were in a particular valley that they were known to come into, and God said, well, you need to go right straight down that valley and hit them head on, and so, you know, David did, and he won the battle, and so you would think that when they showed up in the same valley in the same exact situation, you know, six months later, that like most men, well, I did it before, you know, I can do it again. Well, that isn't what David did.
He went back to God, which is what we need to do in so many situations like this, only this time God said, oh, don't, don't, don't, don't go heading down that valley. This time, you know, go around through the back and get into the balsam trees, and when you hear the sound of the marching of the balsam trees, then come attack the other way, and of course, you know, David was successful, but the point being that, you know, we need to check in every time, and every year it's a little bit something different, right, Hans? Oh, it is, and this year I'm thinking that it is going to be a real interesting year, let's just put it that way, and so I want to get right into it. The first thing I want to talk about is all these annoying phone calls that you get, and annoying TV commercials, but really a lot of the TV commercials, and then, you know, now they become internet ads, and a lot of them had Joe Namath in them, or some other celebrity, and I think what is the good news is you're going to see less of that because the government has put the clamps down on advertising, is I don't think they had realized that they were actually paying for it, because in this Medicare Advantage business, and prescription drug plans, the government pays for everything. I mean your premium on a lot of Medicare Advantage plans is zero, and so, you know, the insurance companies are not getting their money from anywhere but the government, and the government, if the insurance companies are paying for the ads, and that's really what they are doing, so I don't want to get into a long detailed story about it, but I think that what they were doing is they were selling, so it wasn't really the insurance companies running the Joe Namath ads, it was a lead company, it wasn't even an insurance agency like mine, it was a lead company, and this lead company would get you to respond, and put in your phone number, and your information, and then they would sell it to 20 other people, 20 other sales people like me, so you'd have four, you know, they'd have, if they sell it for $20, but they sell it 20 times over, they'd get $400, which is about what it costs them to make these leads.
I mean it's expensive to run TV advertising, and then those individual people that bought the lead, the 20 people, they weren't really people, they were call centers, they would call 20 times, so you'd get 400 phone calls just for sending in one little click response, but for calling into that 800 number, and that needed to stop, and I think that this year it's going to be severely restricted because of some new laws that they've put in, so that's actually a good thing. I think that what I really want to do on today's show is just go back and talk about with Medicare annual enrollment period coming up, which is October 15th to December 7th, just what exactly, why do we have an open enrollment period? What can you do?
What do you need to do? And that's what I want you to get out of the show, okay? Yeah, and well, I was just going to say, part of the confusion of just that is the open enrollment period isn't for people, except on the drug plan, that are still on original Medicare. Right, so if you're on original Medicare, if you didn't take Medicare advantage, and you're on original Medicare, and you bought a Medicare supplement, the Medicare annual enrollment period, October 15th to December 7th, only matters to you for your drug plan, because that is part of the deal, is that is technically Medicare advantage, so if you wanted to change your drug plan, you want to go from one company to another, maybe you're not happy with the one you have, and you want to see if there's a better one, for you, and then if we find a better one, we can only do that change, October 15th to December 7th. And so that's a great point, is that people on original Medicare, this doesn't matter much to you, unless you wanted to get on a Medicare Advantage plan, which a bunch of people do that every year, you can only do that October 15th to December 7th, or if you're on Medicare, to December 7th, or if you're on one of these Medicare Advantage plans, and you want to get off, and you want to go back to original Medicare, and you want to buy a supplement, you got to do that October 15th to December 7th, so it matters to most everybody on Medicare, but the point I want everybody to get is in the summer, all these parties and the powers that be, they're meeting, and they're negotiating things, so you got the government, which is the Centers for Medicare Services, CMS, they're coming to the table, you got the Medicare Advantage companies and the prescription drug plan companies, they're coming to the table, and it's really those two parties negotiating with each other for how much this stuff is going to cost, how much the government's going to put in it, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and the Medicare Supplement Insurance companies, they're not part of this thing, they're just kind of over there because they're regulated by the states, and you can buy Medicare Supplement Insurance year-round, you can change that. So, I just want to prepare our customers, our listeners, people, I just want to tell you what's going down so that you have a sense of it.
So, the first thing is look for less advertising, phone calls, look for less activity this year, and I guess I could end up wrong about that, as these people that are doing this, they figure out some other way to do it, so, but I'm just guessing there's going to be a lot less of that. Now, I think it'd be important, and I just did a little bit of that, to go over the difference between Original Medicare, Part A and Part B, Medicare from the government, and then Medicare Advantage. So, you're on one route or the other route, you can't be going down both routes, and everybody needs to start with Original Medicare, you get the red, white, and blue card, you got Part A, you pay for Part B, 175 bucks a month, they take it out of your Social Security check, if you're on Social Security, if not, you got to pay it. If you have a high income, you got to pay this Medicare IRMA for Part B, that's true whether you are on Original Medicare or Medicare Advantage.
Now, at some point in the past, if you're on Medicare Advantage, you opted out of your Original Medicare, and you outsourced your Medicare to a Medicare Advantage company, like Humana or UnitedHealthcare, CVS, Aetna, there's a whole list of them, and you're getting your Medicare from the Medicare Advantage insurance company, and the coverage is different, you've got networks with one of them, you don't have a networks if you're on Original Medicare and a supplement. So you can watch my other videos, listen to some old shows if you wanted to, or you can just call us up if you need some more clarity and explanation between the two of them. I just wanted to kind of open up this show and give a little review, and then talk about what you can expect this year, and what you need to do. So then at the end of the show, or the second half of the show, I'm going to talk about the Inflation Reduction Act, which is thinking, what does that have to do with anything with Medicare? It really, in theory, doesn't, but they passed a law a year or two ago called the Inflation Reduction Act that was designed to reduce inflation, but they tacked a whole bunch of stuff onto it, and one of those is Medicare, and they made a pretty big change to the Medicare prescription drug plan, and it gets implemented at the beginning of 2025. So that's all what we're going to be talking about today.
Robbie, do you want to react to that a little bit? Yeah, I think that, you know, like you said, the first question we got to figure out is, you know, what route did we take with our Medicare? Essentially, are we on a Medicare supplement, and we're still relying on Medicare to make the payments with sort of a drug plan on top of that, but the original Medicare idea, or did we take Medicare advantage, and we've got something that's coming, like you said, through Humana and those kind of things, and I've been on both of them, and, you know, certainly I have a strong opinion about which one I like better, but to begin with, it's just they're significantly different in that if you are on a Medicare supplement, you're probably paying a pretty good premium for that supplement, and that would also be a good trigger of how you know that, oh yeah, I must be on original Medicare because I'm paying, you know, an insurance premium of some size, you know, it might be $100, $150, or even $250, right, Hans?
Yeah, I mean, that's very good. As always, the show's brought to you by CardinalGuide, cardinalguide.com. If you go to cardinalguide.com, you're going to find the seven words tab, tabs, and one of those is certainly Medicare, and that's what we're talking about today, so it's got show notes, so if you're sitting there going, gee, I don't know if I have Medicare, Medicare advantage, you know, those kind of questions that get to the heart of open enrollment, oh, those just those show notes will come in very, very handy, again, at the Medicare tab at cardinalguide.com, as well as, you know, contact information for Hans, and his book, The Complete Cardinal Guide to Planning for and Living in Retirement. So much fun to to understand these things as we try to finish well, which is what we're talking about today, Open Enrollment 2024.
We're going to be right back with so much more. Investment Advisory Services offered through Brookstone Capital Management LLC, abbreviated BCM, a Registered Investment Advisor. BCM and Cardinal Advisors are independent of each other.
Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM, but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents. Cardinal Advisors is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other government agency. Welcome back to Finishing Well with Certified Financial Planner Hans Scheil, and today's show we're talking about Open Enrollment 2024.
It's right on us, isn't it, Hans? Well, it is, and, you know, it's a little frustrating for me because I want to give people good advance notice. I want to prepare my company and all the people in our company to serve customers, and frankly, I still don't know exactly what's going down or how much this stuff is going to cost people this year.
That's what it really boils down to, and I can give you a little idea why of that. I talked in the beginning of the show is that a year ago when they passed this Inflation Reduction Act, there were a lot of folks complaining to their Congress and complaining to people. They're saying, you know, when I have expensive medicines, I'm on Medicare, when my medicines, when I'm on cancer drugs, some name-brand drugs like Eliquis, a whole bunch of them that have been recently introduced or in the last few years that are expensive, and I get into the donut hole on the Part D plan. I mean, I could be out several thousand dollars of out-of-pocket expenses even though I have a Part D Medicare plan, and so the government decided in this Inflation Reduction Act just to throw in a cap, which I'm happy with, okay, because if, you know, and the cap is $2,000 of out-of-pocket expenses for every Medicare Part D beneficiary in the country, which includes you and me, Robbie, I mean, so we've got a protection built in that we can't spend any more out of our own pocket starting in 2025 than $2,000 for our drugs for the year, so we're on 100% coverage after we've paid out 2,000 bucks. So on the one hand, I like that, but what they didn't do when they passed this is come up with the money. I mean, how are we going to pay for this? It just sounded like it's not going to cost that much, but so it just got down.
That's been the law. Everybody's been preparing for it, and when the insurance companies, the way they get the money to offer you Medicare Advantage with a zero premium is the government pays for everything. I mean, they're, you know, the government is paying, like, if you have a Medicare Advantage plan, and, you know, let's just say it's with Humana, and let's just guess that the benefit is that Humana is getting a check from the government every month for $1,000. I'm just guessing at that for your Medicare Advantage plan every month, and so instead of you paying the premium to Humana, the government is, and then Humana is delivering the benefits to you. Well, they meet every summer, and they get ready for the next year, and the insurance companies say, in order to keep providing these benefits, if you're Humana, we can't do it on $1,000 anymore. We've got to have $1,200 a month or something, and then the government says, oh, it's too much, and they come up with some agreement that this is how much the insurance company is going to receive to insure Robbie Dilmore in Winston-Salem, North Carolina for the next 12 months in 2025, and this year, because every Medicare Advantage plan, I should say every, most Medicare Advantage plans include a Part D plan, and when they met this summer for the Part D plans and for the Medicare Advantage plans, which include Part D, the insurance companies were saying, we need a lot more money from you, the government, to give this additional coverage and protection to everybody, and the government was just shocked, and they reached an impasse, and so the government came up with some money to make this thing less, let's just put it that way, but it's still going to be, you know, my guess is significant, and I don't know, I haven't put numbers to this on purpose, because I don't know what they are. I mean, I've read what they were when the insurance companies went to the government and said, this is how much they need, and then the government balked, but I don't know where they finally settled, and so my guess is, is you're going to be getting a letter in the mail if you have a standalone Part D plan that says, you know, your premium used to be, I mean, we had some of those that were free or 50 cents a month or a dollar a month, it's going to be different than 50 cents a month or a dollar a month, and I'm just going to leave it to you to open the envelope and wait for you to open the envelope and wait for this to happen. And, you know, anybody that wants to call me or call my company and get some help with this, and we can tell you what the other people are charging, what changes you can make, I'm just kind of tipping you off that the Part D plans are going to go up, and I don't know what effect this is going to have on the Medicare Advantage plans, especially the ones that are zero premium, which is a lot of them, they're going to have to get this additional money out of somewhere, and, you know, my guess is it's going to come out of the consumer. So you could see many of those are not going to be zero premium in 2025. So I don't want to alarm everybody, I just want to prepare you for something's going down, and when your initial reaction is that's what the open enrollment and the annual enrollment period is for, is you can make changes.
Right. That's the, you know, the thing I took away from the video that I watched as long as the same subjects at cardinalguide.com under that same Medicare worries tab is that I can almost be certain that the game's going to change to an extent, even though I'm on a Medicare supplement, I do have a drug plan, and so, wow, I'm going to have to dial 1-800-HANDS and say, guys, what does this look like this year? Because it's going to change, and if you're on a Medicare Advantage, the whole thing changes, because they have their drug plans are within the whole Medicare Advantage, and so they may find a completely different premium coming on their Medicare Advantage as well, right? Yeah, but it's not going to be back to 50 cents a month or a dollar a month or free because, or not free, zero premium, just because every company that sells these has to offer a plan that has a maximum out-of-pocket of 1,500 for the consumer, and I know myself that I had, you know, I had an accident in February, or actually in January, and I had the surgery in February, and the doctor sent me to the pharmacy before I even went in for the surgery to get a whole bunch of stuff I was going to take for, like, two weeks after, and I went into that doughnut hole, like, quickly, and the deductible and doughnut hole and all that kind of stuff, and so I've been way over the 2,000 bucks all year, you know, and other things that I take, and so I've been able to kind of track this, and I knew this was coming, and I was thinking as a consumer, I'm thinking, well, great, next year if I have this happen again, at least the pain's going to stop at 1,500 bucks, but what I hadn't really thought about is they got to get that money from somewhere, and they're going to be getting it out of us, and the Medicare Advantage plans that were zero premium, I'm not sure exactly where that's going, but if they got to get the same thing, because the drug plans are now going to cap your out of pocket at 1,500 bucks, and so they got to get that extra money from somewhere, and maybe the companies will absorb it, I don't really know, but we just got to wait and see, and, you know, I just want to let everybody know that we're here for you, and we offer these plans for most of these companies, and some of you, if you get a pretty stiff premium increase on the Medicare Advantage, you may want to actually go back to original Medicare, like Robbie did, and get on a supplement, and, you know, we can help you with all that. Yeah, it's, you know, one of the fundamental decisions, and I know the show's not about that necessarily, but, you know, all those things about donut holes and deductibles and all change drastically between the two ideas, and so it's well worth, you know, talking to Hans, or connecting to Cardinal Guide to get help with it, because, again, doing all this on your own, I have no, you know, really Hans, I have no understanding of how I would have ever navigated this Medicare situation without, you know, your help, and I do the show every week. Sure, and we talk about Medicare a lot, you know, it's an all-year thing, and, but, you know, I'm following this, but they still, this year, I'm in the dark as to what is, they actually are not going to release the copies of the new plans and the prices of the new plans on the computer for us until October 1st. Now, they can give us some sneak peeks at some things, but I don't even attend a lot of those because it's hard without a computer to analyze all this stuff, and so, you know, on October 1st, we'll be able to do that, and it kind of gives us, like, 15 days before it's October 15th where we can actually start writing plans and doing things, so we do the consulting on all this, we study it all year long, and, you know, we'll get you in the right place for you, and this isn't a cut-and-dried decision for everybody, it's just different for everybody, we gotta sit down with you and figure it out. Yeah, if there's any good news in this, I mean, I have people that have been diagnosed with cancer and they have cancer, they're being treated for it, and some of these drugs for cancer are $10,000 a month. I mean, I don't, did you know that, Robbie? Oh, I did, I did, and so, you know, I'm with you, this idea of having a maximum out-of-pocket at that is huge, but by the same time, if the insurance companies are picking up that difference, you know it's got to get passed along at some level to everybody through the whole process, and all the more reason we gotta stay close, you know, to the information so that we can make good decisions, because, you know, just like for me, and again, now that you're on Medicare personally, you could kind of take it personally when you start to write the checks, but like, you know, I had bouts with kidney stones and all sorts of things, had I had them last year when I wasn't on, you know, Medicare with a supplement, it would have cost me a lot of money, as it was, you know, when I saw the the bills getting paid by my supplement, I was like, man, good decision, Robbie. Yeah, it is. Having a Medicare supplement, and then original Medicare, and then picking your drug plan every year, it gives you a lot of freedom.
You can go to any doctor you choose, and you just gotta pay for it. Yeah, we've run out of time again. We're going to remind you, the show's brought to you by cardinalguide.cardinalguide.com, where there are the seven worries tabs. Of course, today's all about Medicare, and of course, if you go to that, you'll see show notes, all kinds of information about what we've talked about today, as well as a wonderful video with the same information, of course, the contact page for Hans and Tom, and the complete cardinal guide to planning for and living in retirement, all there at cardinalguide.com. Thanks, Hans. Great show.
And God bless you. The opinions expressed by Hans Scheil and guests on this show are their own and do not reflect the opinions of this radio station. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable, although it should not be relied upon as such.
Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Investments involve risk, and unless otherwise stated are not guaranteed. Past performance cannot be used as an indicator to determine future results. Any strategies mentioned may not be suitable for everyone. Information expressed does not take into account your specific situation or objectives, and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for you. Before acting on any information mentioned, please consult with a qualified tax or investment advisor to determine if it's suitable for your specific situation.
Finishing Whale is designed to provide accurate and authoritative information with regard to the subject covered. Investment advisory services offered through Brookstone Capital Management LLC, abbreviated BCM, a registered investment advisor. BCM and Cardinal Advisors are independent of each other.
Insurance products and services are not offered through BCM, but are offered and sold through individually licensed and appointed agents. Cardinal Advisors is not affiliated with or endorsed by the Social Security Administration or any other government agency. We hope you enjoyed Finishing Whale, brought to you by CardinalGuide.com. Visit CardinalGuide.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 CardinalGuide.com. If you have a question, comment, or suggestion for future shows, click on the Finishing Whale radio show on the website and send us a word. Once again, that's CardinalGuide.com. CardinalGuide.com. This is the Truth Network.
