Is car, homeowners, and health insurance costs out of control where you live?

@pmarin Mine went up from around 250 to when I first bought it to almost 1,000 now.

@werehatrack You still have to deal with the 20% that medicare doesn’t cover and weigh choosing an advantage plan where you have to stay in network and get referrals to specialists vs a supplemental plan which has few limitations who you visit, costs a lot more but you almost never get any bills.

@Felton10 I have regretted the Advantage error for years. It greatly complicates everything, particularly if you need anything while out of state. .

@Felton10 @werehatrack AND the maximum out of pocket for advantage plans is way more than the premium for supplement G and the Medicare B deductible combined.

@Felton10 @Kidsandliz @werehatrack
Where they get you is that everybody’s needs and use are individual. For me an advantage plan makes sense. They covered my hip replacement with about $225 out of pocket. My advantage plan locally covers virtually every physician in the state, there is no referral necessary for a specialist. There haven’t been any problems with it out of state either. OTOH I’m fairly healthy and other than routine dental / eye and Ortho visits don’t see a lot of doctors.
As far as premiums versus out-of-pocket max, since I’ve never used it to hit my max the premiums have probably been covered by now (6 yrs).
But… YMMV as always.

@chienfou @Felton10 @werehatrack

Well IF you end up no longer healthy, unless you live in a birthday state or equivalent, you will be trapped in advantage plans for life as you will need to pass medical underwriting to get a supplement (medigap). Around here the cheapest maximum out of pocket for advantage plans is a touch over 2 times more than my medicare G premium and the most expensive far more than that.

Of course the government limits the maximum to $9825 in network and $13,900 for out of network or a combination of in and out of network. However add to that the referral problem, denials that happen at up to 30, and around here anyway up to 40% (although about half get over turned) and no referral needed for original medicare, that is another problem that adds delay to your health care and no guarantee that it will be overturned.

Around here there many advantage plans that are accepted but because health care is pretty crappy in this state (this state is in a race to the bottom with two contiguous states) I have to go out of state for some care (like cancer care). I wouldn’t be able to do that on an advantage plan (the PPO’s are vanishing quickly).

Also the advantage plan landscape is changing. I am hiding on an insurance forum (not an agent but pretended to be one to get on there) and reading posts (I don’t post) what is going on right now with advantage plans is going to make some of them worse than they are now. Many are reducing benefits, and with agent commission cuts (often to zero) many agents have posted that they will not tell customers about plans that don’t pay them to sign you up so don’t trust you will get full information from agents (and medicare D - so check your meds against the D’s this year or you may have a horrible shock, even if all you take are cheap generics).

We are starting to have local systems refuse to accept the advantage plans with the higher referral denial rates as they don’t want to have to deal with having to do appeals so that is worth checking when signing up for one or changing to a different one.

All in all health care in this country is a system that is largely for profit nationwide, is a problem. Of course universal health care has it’s issues too but for many who aren’t dual eligible (get both medicaid and medicare) the cost, along with the limits especially if you live in areas without a lot of choices, can greatly impact your ability to even get health care. I have used health care in 6 of the 7 countries I have lived in and for the most part I’d choose the issues involved with universal health care over the issues in this country if you aren’t higher income.

@Kidsandliz
All good, valid points. Our current advantage plan (Viva) is tied to UAB, which has a pretty good rep for most things. My wife’s breast cancer treatments were through Thomas Infirmary in Fairhope and both the services and facility were top notch. Out of pockets were manageable. Thankfully, neither of us has extensive problems with hypertension, diabetes, heart conditions, systemic cancers, etc.
I agree healthcare in this country is “broken”. The concept of medicine as a service rather than a guaranteed high paid profession is one of the primary reasons I chose to move away from the medical career path that I was on initially.

@chienfou @Kidsandliz

Ive been on the dreaded UHC since I signed up for medicare.

I intend to change this year to something … anything … else.

Recs are welcome.

Texas market

I haven’t specifically had issues with UHC, but I’ve know so many people who have, or have heard so many stories, not to mention that violent incident in Manhattan …

My well-respected internist retired in March. I’ve been assigned to a new one. I haven’t even met that person yet.

The new internist has a wonderful reputation, but that physician‘s office manager (who I’m spoken to now three times on the phone) has been insanely rude from the moment the phone was answered every single time I spoke to him

The physician may be great, but honestly, why should anybody deal with some asshole on the phone in order to get good medical care?

Plus the owner of their previous building wanted all the space for something else and sort of closed out the medical office lease contract, and in April the med group moved to a new place. It’s a bit less convenient, although not horribly so.

My previous internist was about retirement age, and I’m guessing that the PITA office move was the thing that made him decide it was time to retire

So now I’m willing to change physicians because of some small location issues and other much larger issue of the office manager being such a jerk

(I confirmed this “manager=jerk issue” with other patients. the guy is a jerk. Let’s say he certainly is leaving that impression with a lot of people. he tends to be quite condescending, to get facts wrong [such as dates of appts] and then to think he’s perfect and to make it obvious that you are intellectually inferior to him and he’s the only competent person present. And all from the first syllable he speaks)

so if I’m willing to change physicians, I might as well be willing to change plans …

not to mention UHC‘s industry leading reputation for being completely evil

Recommendations or mentions of things to watch for are entirely welcomed

Currently no dark side terrible medical indicators for me.

My daily Rx’s that are absolutely kind of necessary are a thyroid thing a vitamin D thing

and, for the rest of them, doesn’t matter to me if I take them or not, and it doesn’t matter to my labs very much either.

Oh yeah, they want me to start some iron but I haven’t bothered yet (I will) and there’s some special (I forget what) preferred sort of iron and I haven’t bothered yet about that either

So if anybody’s got insight into what advantage provider sucks less, would be interested to hear

Also, if any one has insight into where to get more inside info on what’s going on in the Medicare and advantage markets, I’d be interested to hear that

@chienfou @f00l So it sounds like you are on an advantage plan with UHC. They have the highest denial rate for referrals of all advantage plans (at least the big ones) that I know of (of course I may not have all the facts). I know some practices are no longer accepting them because of that (eg having to do so many appeals).

Medicare D is going to hell in a hand basket for 2027. The subsidy is gone and all hell is breaking loose according to that insurance forum I am on. Higher premiums, higher copays, smaller formularies… While you may not be taking much now, you never know. I’d ask the meh 8 ball if I were you. That might see the future better.

Also most companies are cutting way back on the cards that give you free stuff and/or adding income limits above and beyond what is already there.

There is an medicare reddit forum theoretically for agents and a facebook one too. On the one I am on they don’t answer questions from non-agents.

Call SHIP and ask them. They are free and no one sells anything. Each state is required to have one. Call each company and ask them your questions, Don’t give out your real name so they can’t flip your enrollment (as some can do).

Actually starting October 7 all this should be out there on medicaire dot gov

@chienfou @Kidsandliz

I know how to use the medicare.gov site. I just want to be prepped before all the new plan info gets slotted into it and it goes public.

What is SHIP

Also, I wouldn’t mind hearing from people signed up for a Medicare advantage plan with their personal experiences in dealing with the company

Yeah, I know UHC might be terrible for me or anyone else in the long run even though so far no problems

But so far, I’ve had no expensive referrals

I had a heart sonogram because my brother had a valve issue and it might be hereditary, but I seem not to have it

And I had ENT referral which turned into allergy shots until I decided that it was too big of PITA and not really helping

So far, I haven’t been expensive patient for my Medicare plan, but of course that can change for anyone at any time

But I really want to find a plan that sucks less and an internist who is decent and convenient

The second part I’ll ask around with people I know, but the first part I just like to hear in general from people who wanna talk about what’s good or bad about their advantage provider

@f00l
I’ve been happy with my coverage from VIVA, but they are an Alabama company. They are associated with UAB, virtually every physician in state takes it, very easy to work with, and so far I have absolutely no complaints. Since I am pretty healthy overall and on no meds, I’ve probably been a good client for them to have. The only big expense they have put out has been a hip replacement a few years back.
Good luck with your search. Hope the outcome will be more tolerable.

@Felton10 And for some companies you have to pass medical underwriting. Also many are now going off shore to, especially, Bermuda, that is really lax about reserves they need to have Venture Capital sees these as a money maker out there (eg off shore) and some of these companies go under. To anyone buying this make sure the don’t resell to off shore and the reserves are adequate or when they go under all you have paid into the system goes with it.

@cinoclav Just make sure all the coverages are comparable. When I worked in insurance that company in particular would quote people and give them astronomically lower rates but when they would come in to talk to us, they’d find out it was lower because they had less coverage.

@sillyheathen I compared every line of the two policies. Same coverage and I was even able to drop her deductible from $500 to $250. Travelers is just insanely expensive.

@cinoclav if it’s genuine it’s great. Some of them can be a reyt pain when it comes to payout or payout amount. I won’t name names because it’s been a while since I worked in the industry but based on my own experience, there are a few I would never hold policies with because of how hard or how little they made payouts for other and their own clients.

@cfg83

T$PTB will find a way to make RV living unaffordable if they have not already done so.

Condos are becoming close to unsellable already due to insane rises in HOA fees, crazy insurance costs, and constant special HOA fee add-on charges charges (for special building repair projects and the like)

@f00l Whyyyy do I believe you. Not stated as a question.