Reply to Medicare Premiums

Forum Index » Money and Finances

Reply to "Medicare Premiums"

Subject:

Emoticons





More smilies

Text Color: Font: Close Marks

[quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous][quote=Anonymous]We are in the process of starting full retirement. Silly me to think Medicare Part B is free.

Today I received a letter telling us that our monthly premium for medicare will be over $629 a month for both myself and my spouse (an annual expense of over $15,000). This is extremely hard to swallow because for the past 15 years of my husband's employment, we paid no premiums, and our coverage pretty much ensured no out of pocket expenses at all with no deductible.

We generally use out of network providers who do not take Medicare, so it is really infuriating that we have to pay this money for insurance we will rarely use. The regular premium for most people is $185, but we get slapped with an adjustment based on our income. I feel like we are paying everyone else's insurance premiums while we won't even be tapping into medicare providers.

We have supplemental insurance provided by my husband's previous employer which will cost us nothing and provides the same coverage as before. So we will be paying nothing for the insurance we use most. It is crazy.

I know, first world problems.

[/quote]

What is this employer-paid supplemental plan that requires you to be in Medicare, but that is accepted by physicians that are not in Medicare?  [/quote]

It's an Aetna plan. The employer requires that the retiree enroll in Medicare and use that is primary coverage. The Aetna plan kicks in the remaining outstanding balance of what Medicare doesn't cover, including all non Medicare providers and all out of network providers for the Aetna plan. Is this unusual?
[/quote]

Sounds like a retiree group plan.  So you are benefiting from Medicare then, just indirectly.  The premiums that Aetna charges your employer for the retiree group plan reflect that Medicare is the primary payer for most services.  The employer might not offer the plan, or offer it under different terms, if Aetna charged full freight.

Also, you must have retiree MAGI of over $750k to have a Part B premium of $629.  I think you can afford it.  [/quote]

OP here. Yes this is the best explanation of the situation. The high income last year was due to exercising a large number of stock options. The income will go down next year once all options exercised, but deferred comp will kick in. So we will still be at a high level...but not that high. But honestly, I had no clue that the premium would be so high. I've adjusted to the idea and of course appreciate that we will continue to have very good coverage at a relatively low price.

[/quote]

Options

	Disable HTML in this message
	Disable BB Code in this message
	Disable smilies in this message

Review message

Search Recent Topics Hottest Topics