![]() Independent agents/brokers have more options. Which is why people get a supplement or Advantage (Part C) plan, to help limit possible costs from illness/accident. Anyone telling you one is better than the other without talking to you about your exact wants/needs/whatever, is someone not worth listening to. Supplements (G or N are the most common for newly 65 now) are more expensive than Advantage plans. The cheapest monthly premium may not be the cheapest once you factor in cost of meds. A drug might be $5 copay on one plan and $50 on another. Part B also has a yearly deductable! I believe it's $198 this year. If you do not take B (and D!) when you are in your initial enrollment period, you also get tagged with a penalty when you do sign up later. If they are wrong on one or both cases, you can then maybe get a Special Enrollment Period (SEP) since the employer misinformed you. Again, the employer benefits folks should be able to answer both questions. Ideally, if you want to keep working after age 65 and defer Part B and Part D, you want your EHGP hospital/medical benefits to be primary to Medicare, and you want your EGHP drug benefits to be creditable. My understanding is that "creditable" applies only to whether the employer's drug plan benefit is considered equal to to better than Medicare's drug benefit. In my understanding, the term "creditable" doesn't apply to the primary/secondary payer question. ![]() Not much more research is needed than that. However, just ask the employer about the primary/secondary payer question and get it documented before deciding what to do. If one of the companies in the group is "large", then the entire group can be considered large. Sometimes the employer may be part of a group of companies with a common insurer. If your employer tells you that they will be primary to Medicare, then it really doesn't matter how many employees there are.Ī company with fewer employees can still offer the same benefits to older employees if they wish, but don't have to by law. One can defer Part B without penalty if the EGHP is primary to Medicare. The question to ask of the company benefits folks is whether the employer group health plan (EGHP) will be primary or secondary payer to Medicare when you turn 65 and keep working. There are laws that require employers to give the same benefits to those 65 and older as they do to younger employees when the employer is "large" (20 or greater-no disability 100 or greater with disability). you bring on as many as you can and spread the risk and the cost. If they can do this for the sickest part of the population, why can't they offer it to healthy people who need insurance? That's how insurance works. With a medicare advantage plan my copays are lower, my $3000 of insulin is covered for about $75, and the only med they didn't cover is available almost as cheap with coupons. Three months ago I was paying BCBS $900/mo and happy to have it. I'm upper-middle income and somehow I qualified for a NO-PREMIUM Humana Advantage policy that fills in most of my gaps. The simplest for me was medicare with a medicare advantage plan. There are four or five other types of coverage you have to consider - your meds, your 20% copay on everything, your yearly deductible and donut hole. And the $148 just gets you very basic coverage with TONS of shortfalls and it will leave you with big bills.
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