Social Security benefits and retirement (relatives, twin, wife, mother)
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As a health care practitioner, dealing with insurances for many years, Aetna, Humana and Kaiser are about the worst ones we have to work with, patient coverage and payment wise.
Best insurances we deal with are Medicare HMOs through say BCBS and such, Microsoft, Amazon, various military ones (Tricare for life) or, straight Medicare with supplement. As suppliment, per my patients, AARP is the best supplement.
Our eatna part d plan was bought Out by another company …our generic drugs we used to pay 3 and 4 dollars for now have a 400 dollar deductible before they cover it all ….that is crazy …
Aetna - was purchased by CVS (ARG), a couple yrs. ago. (shouldn't have been allowed IMO)
As a health care practitioner, dealing with insurances for many years, Aetna, Humana and Kaiser are about the worst ones we have to work with, patient coverage and payment wise.
Best insurances we deal with are Medicare HMOs through say BCBS and such, Microsoft, Amazon, various military ones (Tricare for life) or, straight Medicare with supplement. As suppliment, per my patients, AARP is the best supplement.
Kaiser is an HMO that offers Medicare Advantage as far as I am aware.
Was this insurance issue for services that were rendered outside of Kaiser's network?
Otherwise, why were Kaiser patients coming to you instead of Kaiser facilities?
Less health insurance costs, what is formidable. Also, if you make $4800 and your combined expenses are $4800, you have no buffer for things unforeseen, unless you have a nice stash to dip into, when needed - and it is, somehow, miraculously, NOT decreasing in value year to year.
Unfortunately, being in health care, I see many Medicare recipients that count and struggle with every penny of their expenses.
A shocking number of families have income of under $4800 after taxes, and are working full time. With good money Management that should be sufficient income.
#57 above brings me to a very simple stipulation.
1. I don't know, how long I'll live
2. NO ONE knows for sure, what will happen to SS and the country tomorrow, least to say, in say 4 yrs, when I hit 70
3. I am pretty much sure, someone is, while I am waiting, using "my" fund money for sorts of profit making
That brings me to a quote from a song: "It is always better to regret things you had done, than things you did not". Maybe, it's better to regret that I draw SS at my FRA, than to find out that in six months, or six yrs, entire thing is gone PUFF.
Certainly, unless someone here has real magic ball and wants to share. "people were saying" does not quite sound factitious. Both ways.
2. NO ONE knows for sure, what will happen to SS and the country tomorrow, least to say, in say 4 yrs, when I hit 70
Social Security isn't going away in the next four years. The crap will hit the fan in 2034. Per the following, what all or most of us can look forward to between now and 2034 is some sort of reduction in benefits. A good retirement plan won't count on SS benefits being on the same level forever -- but my bet is that they're not going to go so low that those who depend on them are pushed below the poverty line. I'm planning based on my Most Likely Case Scenario below and assuming that at some time in the next decade I'll see a 10% to 15% reduction in benefits.
Quote:
If we reach the point where there is nothing left in Social Security’s reserves—where it would be impossible to pay the full scheduled benefits of all retirees—the default reaction will be to cut benefits to all retirees such that Social Security’s income and “debts” are in balance again.
Now, we don’t want to downplay the impact that cut would have on retirees at all. As things are today, if nothing is done to fix Social Security’s long-term solvency, we’re talking about a 25% cut to everyone’s benefits to get the program back in balance. The federal poverty level for one person is $12,880 and $17,420 for couples.
As many as 40% of all seniors ONLY receive income from Social Security. The reality is a 25% benefit cut would push nearly half of all retirees to or below the poverty line. This cut would be absolutely devastating to the whole economy, but especially to older Americans. For them, the program might as well be bankrupt if that happens—these retirees already struggle to make ends meet on their full benefits now.
Social Security is currently relying on surplus contributions taken in over the decades to pay retirees’ full benefits. The Social Security Trustees recently estimated that surplus will be exhausted in 2034.
Best Case Scenario: Congress gets off its fat @ss and stops kicking the can down the road; it comes up with a plan that changes the rules: means testing (if you're making a million a year, you don't need SS -- and there are plenty of well-off people in this group who say they really don't need it), raising the full retirement age (people are living longer these days), etc. Those who need SS are not affected.
Most Likely Case Scenario: Congress continues kicking the can down the road until they can no longer do so, they panic because they know they're going to lose their cushy government jobs and come up with a plan that (in addition to steps like means testing and raising FRA) reduces benefits using some sort of means testing -- or does some across-the-board reduction in benefits, somewhere in the 10%-15% range. Bad things happen, but it's not quite as bad as it could have been and Congress declares "success" and pats itself on the back.
Worst Case Scenario: Congress does nothing, and as noted in the quote above, everyone takes a 25% hit on their benefits. You will have massive evictions of pensioners, death by starvation of the elderly and their inability to pay for medical care, a huge elderly homeless population, etc. Younger generations will see their parents and grandparents dying because of the incompetence of Congress.
If members of Congress let the Worst Case Scenario happen because of their cowardice, they will be committing career suicide. I don't think they're going to let that happen. And as retirees, we need to take action to encourage them to do what's right for those who depend on their SS checks each month.
My birthday is in November and I carefully compared Advantage Plans. I went with Humana who covered my only prescription...for two months. Then they dropped it and played games with me for the next 6 months. I paid for the prescription out of pocket for more than a year. After they screwed me on a test that was formerly covered, I switched to Kaiser.
Humana lost out on the roughly $10,000 per year that Medicare was paying them to cover me over a few hundred dollars in denied charges.
Stupid and shortsighted!!!
You have to check your meds every year during open enrollment because they add and drop meds every few years. Been there last year, didn't expect AARP to stop covering my meds after close to 10 years
I now have a smaller company called clear spring. Their new rule is they won't cover certain meds until day 30. This was out of the blue last month. The federal government polices medications enough, now the insurance is doing it.
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- was purchased by CVS (ARG), a couple yrs. ago. (shouldn't have been allowed IMO)
