This post is a Public Service Announcement for my Medicare-age readers, or caregivers for elderly parents or relatives.
Check out other Medicare plans to possibly save you money!
This is the last week to change your medicare plan. Open Enrollment ends December 7th. If you haven’t compared plans this year, it’s definitely worth taking the time to take a look at what’s available and it’s super easy to do. I found a new plan that for the two of us saves us a total of over $1,200 a year on premiums and almost $700 a year on my prescriptions, with virtually the same coverage.
Go to Medicare.gov and create an account, if you don’t have one yet. This is a real comparison site that immediately shows the plan you now have, plus plans available in your area. You can do side by side comparisons of up to 3 plans. including 3 pharmacies with estimated prescription costs for the year. It also includes estimated monthly costs of your prescriptions for the 3 pharmacies
I tried comparing rates before, but the sites that kept coming up on an online search were companies that I had to fill in all my information and then my information would be given to a bunch of companies for them to give me quotes. It was not something I wanted to do. And I was totally overwhelmed and frustrated! When a friend directed me to the official site, it was so much easier.
Here’s another short video explaining Medicare . . .
With Medicare.gov side by side comparisons, you can compare deductibles, co-pays, and benefits of each plan. Enter your medicine list and it will tell you the cost of each prescription, the total for the month and the year. It will also tell you when you will hit the donut hole (coverage gap)
If keeping your same doctors are important to you, it is definitely imperative to use the find physician link before committing to a plan change. I found a plan that would have saved us another $360 on premiums for the year (total for the two of us) and another $200 a year on my prescriptions, but I would have had to give up one on my two doctors. Right now it was more important to me to keep both doctors.
Good luck and hope you find lots of savings!
Haphazard Homemaker 
Great post. I’m not quite their yet. I still get fleeced by the affordable health care act that now gives me monthly premiums that are more than many people’s mortgage payments.
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It’s a major racket for sure.
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Very good reminder! I already switched mine.
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Good deal!
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All policies offer the same basic Benefits but some offer additional benefits, so we can choose according to our needs. It is really helpful blog. Thanks for the information.
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Thank you 🙂
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That’s my take as well. The Canadian system is a good model. The Germans and Japanese systems use a hodgepodge to some extent, but are basically government sponsored (last I checked). There must be a way to do this. It’s not rocket science (or brain surgery). The question is, how do you most effectively make the transition. Warren may be too optimistic and she might back off later and advocate a halfway measure as a transitional mechanism.
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It’s definitely more complicated than it should be. Thank you for visiting! 😊
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