Medicare--It's REAL Simple

Thank you for sharing all of that. I have mostly American stations and have seen a lot of ads about medicare a and b and was confused so this explains it for me, thanks. But it seems harder than it has to be.

I get one card, a medicare card, and its good for any doctor or hospital I want to go or any doctor or hospital I am referred to. There is no such thing as having to go to certain doctors or certain hospitals and it covers everything but eyes, dental and prescriptions. I have my own coverage for that. I chose their best package and I added high amount of life insurance to it and it still is about only 30$ a month and I just mail the insurance company a cheque each month for the approx 30$ monthly premiums. When I get all my pills every month I only pay like 3$ a prescription because the pharmacy increased their dispensing fee. My plan covers 100% of my pills but but only pays so much to dispensing fee. I used to pay nothing at all until my pharmacy increased their dispensing fee. Its good for me because I do not even have one prescription that is only 30$ a month which is my premium.




Yeah, we pay our athletes as well based on what medal they win. You sure are right, every time I see an ad on tv or watch the news and its talking about Obamacare and what it means, I get stressed out trying to understand:lolmost of my channels are American so thus all the American ads)

I just get a card and that is that and help to pay for all citizens here to have medicare by paying my taxes.

Conservative values apparently don't allow them to see what might & can happen to them too.

If only!
Hey my niijiiwagun has duel citizenship!

Well it is a GREAT plan if you are independently wealthy!!!!!

Might be time to move.

And the thing with private insurance here, its not just for your teeth, eyes and prescriptions. You can get a good plan that if you get sick and can't work and even are told you are forever disabled, until you are 65 your insurance company pays your wages that you made working so there is nothing to worry about if you are sick and can't work, it covers your pills and it covers your income.

No one who gets sick should ever lose their homes paying for pills or lose their home due to no income and the bank forecloses on them.

But private insurance in America seems much more costly than it is here and much more complicated.

It needs to be simple, easy to understand and something for all people no matter how rich or poor. All treated the same under medicare as it is here. That is only right and fair.

Damn straight!!!!!!!!

the current representative manzullo's office dont care.
i did call the new guy taking office in january.
i'l see what happens then.
for now, i'm looking for a lawyer to sue or country.

Health & happiness to you & family Willi!!!!!

you n yours too.

the new guy is also republican.
most a to much in love with money.

know anything about oregon?

Got family there! Moved there for the right to die with dignity, among other reasons.

I wasn't countering that. In fact you just factually stated what I was saying. What I was countering was your statement that people over 55 can't purchase their own plan.

Go Soledad!
She tries very hard to correct Sununu's right wing lie about Medicare- same lie we've seen here by right wingers at TFS!
https://mediamatters.org/blog/2012/08/14/cnns-obrien-corrects-right-wing-media-medicare/189336

Don't buy into it.
Health reform has begun to close the doughnut hole -- the gap in Medicare prescription drug coverage that many seniors experienced once their annual drug costs exceeded $2,840. Before health reform, seniors had no additional coverage until their costs hit $6,448. Last year, seniors who were in the coverage gap received a 50-percent discount on brand-name drugs and a 7-percent discount on generic prescription drugs. This year, the generic discount jumps to 14 percent. Due to these improvements, five million Medicare beneficiaries have saved more than $3.2 billion, according to the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS). Health reform will close the entire donut hole by 2020. The Ryan budget would reopen it. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/28/12]

also
Chairman Ryan claims that his proposal "ensur[es] that traditional Medicare remains an option." Unfortunately, that's not the case. Under premium support, traditional Medicare would tend to attract a less healthy pool of enrollees, while private plans would attract healthier enrollees (as occurs today with Medicare and private Medicare Advantage plans). Although the proposal calls for "risk adjusting" payments to health plans -- that is, adjusting them to reflect the average health status of their enrollees -- the risk adjustment process is highly imperfect and captures only part of the differences in costs across plans that stem from differences in the health of enrollees.

Inadequate risk adjustment would mean that traditional Medicare would be only partially compensated for its higher-cost enrollees, which would force Medicare to raise beneficiary premiums to make up the difference. The higher premiums would lead more of Medicare's healthier enrollees to abandon it for private plans, very possibly setting off a spiral of rising premium costs and falling enrollment for traditional Medicare. Over time, traditional Medicare would become less financially viable and could unravel -- not because it was less efficient than the private plans, but because it was competing on an unlevel playing field in which private plans captured the healthier beneficiaries and incurred lower costs as a result. Ryan also would allow private plans to tailor their benefit packages to attract healthier beneficiaries and deter sicker ones, which only makes this outcome more likely. [Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, 3/28/12]

In other words. Seniors- grab your wallets!

Health care costs are an international cause for concern. There are international trends -> people living longer and having greater expectations. Government gets its money by employed people paying their taxes. In the UK this is mostly through Pay as You Earn [PAYE] while the self employed pay in arrears and get to hold on to all their earnings. So they use ways to minimise their taxes through a mix of legal tax exemptions plus non declaration. So the rich, who could better afford to pay, just prefer to keep all their earnings. That is why they and their children stay way ahead of the majority. They run the press and politicians so their world view is what we read and mainly accept without question.

illinois is to republican.