Medicare,,,is it better or worse ????

Question

has anyone out there benefited from the new medicare rules. It has done nothing for me except cost me money. I am much worse off before the changes,,,, Thanks to all the jackas repubblicans.

Answer 1

It all depends on your situation. Some people are benefited by Medicare part D, and some people are harmed by it. I work with a lot of people that are harmed by it. In fact with the hundreds of people I have assisted with Medicare part D, I can think of 2 people that were helped by it.

I have seen people automatically enrolled in a plan that does not cover their meds, or worse, they were automatically enrolled in a plan that made them ineligible for their health insurance. I have seen people in two plans, because when they enrolled in a plan that covered their meds, the plan the government enrolled them in did not dis-enroll them. I have seen people that did not have to pay co-pay in the past because they had very low income now having to pay the co-pays, unless their pharmacy decides to waive it. I have seen people that are only supposed to be charged a $1-$3 co-pay be charged a $40.00 and higher co-pay because their plan "did not know the individual was eligible for the low income subsidy", even though the individual provided that information to the plan. I have seen people that were denied their meds by their pharmacy because they could not pay the $40.00 co-pay, per prescription, when they should have only been charged the $1.00-$3.00. The people I work with can't even afford the $1.00-$3.00 so they surly can not afford $40.00. Then thier is the issue of the $250.00 deductable, which I won't go into. I have seen people on hold for minutes to an hour trying to contact their plan to get the problems worked out. Sometimes we could get it fixed wit one call some times it took more than one call.

In some cases I have seen people that have not been able to get their prescriptions filled because the wrong plan (the plan that does not cover the prescription) is showing up on the individual’s record and not the new plan.

I have seen BUCKETS of mail (so much mail even our post office commented to me on SEVERAL OCCAISIONS "boy you guys have been getting a lot of mail") come in relating to Medicare part D for people I work with. I work with a small sliver of the population and if they are getting this much mail I cringe when I think about how many trees are being killed to make all of this paper. Much of this mail is junk mail because 1/2 of it is from plans that people should have been dis-enrolled from, the other 1/2 is from the plans that they should be in. All the Tax payer money that is going RIGHT IN THE TRASH CAN, makes me ill when I think about it.

From my perspective, Medicare part D is a Disaster. For some people though it does help. I am happy for the people that it helps, but for the people I work with it has been a huge thorn in thier side.

Answer 2

My elderly aunt's only income is Social Security and she used to pay well over a $100 a month in medication bills. Now she's on the new medicare prescription plan and the most she pays per prescription is $5.00 ... furthermore many of her prescriptions are now free.

I guess that you would have to be in her shoes (and those of people like her) to appreciate this kind of assistance.

Thanks