Just need to vent...

It seems the services face a difficult choice if there was only one advertiser interested.

 

Here Medicare Support commercials run almost continuously on the channels we watch - Jimmy Walker, Joe Namath. William Shatner (Captain Kirk himself) all telling you to immediately call the Medicare Help Hotline to get "the additional benefits you deserve".

 

Regarding Medicare sign up Windows our area is not even available for most of those programs. The ones that are available are a hideous nightmare even before you give them your cash. You can't even get them on the phone. When they do tell you something, it conflicts with their paper literature.
As one of the few fortunates that was grandfathered under old Medicare / Medical insurance ..... if we wanted to live in certain states our medical policies would actually be completely free.
Since this is a whiners complaint thread I will say if I have to shovel snow many more days in a row - we might just be moving back to one of those warmer states with free medical insurance ... to the chagrin of the better ½.

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We never had a "cable or dish" to cut. Relying totally on OTA (over-the-air) TV, which mostly gave us the major networks (ABC, NBC, CBS, FOX) here in the USA. Once you orient the antenna properly, good to go. But our 20+ year old tv gave it up about a year ago ? and we bought an LG to replace it. I had heard about smart tvs, but never really knew what that meant until we started the LG and were immediately introduced to FREE STREAMING. Very cool. Even broke-down and paid $20 for a super-special ROKU streaming stick of some sort during Amazon's summer sale. Between OTA, LG channels and Roku, have more than we could ever watch - all "free."

Of course, if you have to have ESPN, etc. you are going to pay for that.
kris

 

My late wife had both Part D, medicine, and Part C. We found both were expensive ways to let an insurance company practice medicine without a license. The worst was having a prescription turned down because the pills were of a different dosage sized.

I have just Part A and Part B and no interest in the 'Medicare Support'. If they can afford those expensive commercials, you know who is the bait.

Bob Wilson

 

Half gallon was the commonest retail size, at least as far back as the early 1960s, though.

 

I just tried to cancel my Starz subscription. The web page gives no option so I just tried their web-email method. Regardless, that credit card is no longer valid and I won't put in the replacement. <MEGA-SIGH>

Bob Wilson

 

Those ads aren't for Medicare, but for Medicare Advantage programs. Maybe they've gone to Support for marketing because of the negative press.

Medicare Advantage plans are private insurance. They are funded by the Medicare administration, so have to have the same coverage as Original Medicare(that is still available and over half choose), but have the limitations and downsides of private insurance, like having networks.

How do Medicare Advantage Plans work? | Medicare
Why Are Medicare Advantage Plans So Heavily Advertised?

 

Imagine a system where your healthcare dollars weren't wasted on advertising and on profits for insurance companies.....

No, just a dream, surely.

 

Then who would fill federal political candidates' campaign coffers? Who would buy all the advertising needed to keep TV stations in business? Think of all the media folks and ad agency workers who would starve!

Way back when (before 1997?), drug companies could not advertise direct to consumers, only to the medical professionals. Back then consumers were seriously missing out on prescription drug fads du jour, and didn't know about all those fancy diseases they could brag about to collect more sympathy. How can you demand that your doctor prescribe you something that you don't even know about, for a condition you have never heard of? And of course, pharmaceutical inflation was just so ho-hum, not allowing their makers to become stock market leaders.

Who would want to go back to those bad old days? ... Though before answering, please give me a moment to find shelter from the stampede.

 

What you describe sounds like an unimaginable hellscape. I can't imagine living somewhere like that.

I bet someone who lived somewhere like that would get super sarcastic and snarky on the off-topic sections of a car forum, just because he was so angry all the time.

 

For the record, I am only mildly peeved.

 

As bad as it became, we eventually gave up on tobacco ads.

Bib Wilson

 

i have been happy with our medicare advantage plan, excellent coverage. but when our doc changed practices, they didn't accept it.
took took two months to get it all straightened out.

 

Here it's gambling ads these days. All the time.

 

here it's alcohol

 

We get a bit of that. But whether I'm watching free streaming or free-to-air TV, I'd say gambling accounts for a good half of our adverts (although I wouldn't bet on it).

There is pushback now, and we may get some better regulation on it next year.

 

SSA / Medicare contractors offering advantage plans as advertised to the general public on the boob tube should be thrown in jail just like the CEO of Blue Cross / Blue Shield was 20 years ago, Not exactly sure if that was a local thing where I live or if it made national news.
Those ads are such a mis mash of generalizations and the way they are presented by all of the adverts on TV is horRIFically misleading at BEST.
How retarted have we become to allow such things into our daily lives?

I've learned to preprogram a one button commercial ad change channel to previous channel during suspect ads, only to find the exact same ad on the previous channel almost in perfect sync with the first channel. It than takes me a few seconds to go to another channel using 4 button presses to avoid TV ads that should be illegal in the first place.

Anyone else ever have to deal with at least 2 fairly large companies indemnifying each other punitively 6 ?

 

I find many of the health care policy ads that emerge from the slime this time of year to be brokers. Not the Insurance company itself advertising. Similar thing with the large lawyer groups trolling for class action eligible folks.