... dearest Luigi, marking his milestone in Obamacare history ~

that's what i'm hearing. i'll have to do the missionary work or hopefully find online resources to decide whether to drop it or not.
i'm on the fence because we've been with this company for 20 years, and they have been wonderful and easy to work with.
and we have had many very expensive medical bills over those years including multiple surgeries and hospital stays.

 

If it works for you, it works for you. Some areas could have issues with standard Medicare coverage. I think the Advanatge issue is more with the aggressive advertising to get people to switch that would be fine on the standard.

 

My last military flew a for-real Gadsden Flag during my last deployment, and my beloved USN flew a similar flag at the jackstaffs of her warships 'back in the day' and AGAIN from '02 to '19.


I think I can say with some confidence that some hemped-up prep-school trust funder who gunned down an insurance CEO has about as much to do with the Gadsden flag as the late Theodore John Kaczynski has to do with the US Postal system.

Call the creep an anticorporatist if you want to.
Admire his motives if you must.
HOWEVER (comma!) I would lean away trying to....um....intertwine the motives of a navel gazing attention seeker with those who acted under more patriotic motives and symbols.

My mileage.
Others, I'm sure, will vary.

 

...just to keep the record straight:

The United Healthcare CEO was a farm boy from very humble beginnings who raised himself up through education and hard work and was known by his fellow workers as a humble, hardworking great guy.

To them, slain UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson was a local farm boy

Brian Thompson's Friends, Colleagues Paint Picture of Devoted Family Man - Newsweek

His murderer was a very privileged individual who came from great wealth .

I will not publish the links to the murders privileged background as I don't want to contribute to this cowardly murders notoriety - he shot an unarmed man in the back and then ran away and hid.

I happen to have a United Healthcare Medigap Plan and it is a good affordable Plan to Supplement our Medicare and has saved us tremendous amounts of money in our family's medical cost. Easily in the five figure amount.

 

Starting poor or rich doesn't make you a jerk or not later in life.

 

What does murdering an unarmed man by shooting him in the back and then running away and hiding mark you as?

 

All the advertising I have seen has been deceptive to. they ignore that prescriptions are covered under standard medicare Part D. They imply you need Medicare Advantage to get prescription coverage. Personally i think standard Medicare with a medigap policy is the best way to go for a majority of people. insurance companies to not advertise them because the government tells them exactly what they must cover for each defined level. Medicare Advantage is much more open to the insurance companies determining what they cover, beyond standard medicare Part B & D.

 

That marks you as a jerk, whether you started rich or poor. Was that hard?

 

I would agree with you. Medigap with a Plan D was certainly the best avenue for us.

I would advise anyone approaching age 65 to read a good book on Medicare and then make a decision on what is best for your situation.

There are pros and cons for both Medicare Advantage Plans as well as Medigap plus Plan D. Much depends on your individual situation and even your location.

The Book I read was Medicare Demystified written by Ronald Kahan, MD (A Physician helps save you time, money, and frustration).

For us the ability to pick our own Doctor etc. was paramount as at the time we entered Medicare our area had limited Health Networks that many Medicare Advantage plans demand you access for care.

 

my thinking too.

 

I just turned 70 and, starting next year, will not have employer health insurance. Since my prescription needs are minimal, I signed up for the free Wellcare Part D. I got a Medigap policy through a trusted insurance agent. For me, level N made the most sense for me this next year.

 

I am just a couple of years older than you ... so we are very close in age.
I also have Wellcare Part D $0 Premium - We currently have Medigap Plan G which is great but getting more pricey each year I age - which we expected- am contemplating switching to Pan N in a few more years for the cost savings.

 

I got connected with a good medicare insurance agent who has been trusted by a neighbor for years. He recommended the Wellcare plan even though he would get no commission. He suggested Plan N because i was concerned about the premium, <y wife is only 64 so we got a Marketplace policy for her. Since she is going through a rough cancer journey, we chose a plan based on the total out of pocket maximum. she will move to Medicare in late 2025.

 

I hope your wife completes her medical journey successfully and gets back to full health.

I was very pleased with the Medicare Part D WellCare $0 premium last year. It covered all our generic drugs and we had a $0 Copay for most of them.

 

Welcome to the septagenarian (sp?) club...spelling is the third thing lost after memory

It is not even clear this guy Luigi had an personal issue with UHC or healthcare, apparently his back surgery went fairly well and he was off enjoying himself in Thailand, Malaysia, and Japan earlier this year. This is strange case and I am very reluctant to blame the innocent victim for whatever group-think this guy got mixed up with.

We had a scare with my 94-yr old late mother, a few years back she was in hospital for about 2 weeks with COVID, and that's where she needed to be. After a few days we got a gov't-mandated letter from the Hospital that COVID stays are no longer covered, so we did not know if we should expect a $40,000 bill...the bill never came due, and we still do not know what they were talking about.

 

Thanks for the welcome.
I REALLY feel for you. We are stuck here with some of the worst healthcare. The past 18 months of the cancer journey have been pretty bad/ Early last month my wife has a brain seizure/stroke and was hospitalized. I have never seen a more disorganized business. We went into an emergency clinic around 7P<. At 9:30 PM, after their tests, etc. they decided on a transfer to the local hospital for an MRI and to see a neurologist. They finally transported & admitted her 9:30 AM the next morning. The emergency clinic, hospital, & transportation are all run by the same company. After getting into the hospital, the hospitalist(doctor) ,ust have messed up on the scheduling. Late in the the day the MRI finally happened. Rather than wait for the radiologists to read the scan, the neurologist did it himself. He recommended an EEG & future visit but hospitalization was not needed. By then the hospitalists had gone home so she could not be discharged. The next morning, because she was still there, they performed the EEG and later, she finally got discharged. They misfiled insurance preauthorization giving the reason as cancer so it was denied. They then billed insurance $35K which was also denied. Healthcare & insurance are wo of the biggest rip-offs in society today.

 

My comment applied to both.

The lack of public sympathy for the victim isn't because of who he was. It was for his job title. The ire at the health insurance industry in this country was not unearned. It is a shame many don't see the loss of the person. Trying to invert the class struggle perception by presenting the backgrounds of the two isn't going to help with that. The anger wasn't just about the guy's wealth, but over how the insurance companies profit by denying coverage.

 

I hope arguing with yourself/lecturing others blows your dress up - it holds no interest for me.

 

Yikes I hope NoVA is a little better unless you were up here anyways. So yes if the hospital messed up with the approval process, they or insurance should cover. We've had some (many years ago in NJ) good experience with MRI in a case like that, but there was more time to interpret the results with dye injection, and that became the definitive final test needed.

 

I know the Toyota dealer market in NoVA has gone downhill, even since 2017. Basically online people abusing systems meant to protect consumers cause dealers to make it almost impossible for someone distant to get a vehicle online.Some people are putting credit card deposits with 4 or 5 dealers and, whenever they get a car, they are submitting credit card chargebacks to the other dealers who have likely lost potential sales on their vehicles.
My preferred dealer in Manassas who used to regularly discount off list price has gone to just charging full list.