i'll be 65 in april. I have federal bc/bs and tricare, the military insurance.
I want to keep the bc/bs as backup but my husband wants me to cancel it. once you do, that's it, you can't get it back.
i've heard this administration may go after military retiree benefits like tricare. if they do and I cancel the bc, i'll have only medicare.
I have lots of health bills. my husband does not. he says i'm wasting money. to me it's worth it.
what do you think?
the bc is 190 per month and tricare is free. the medicare part b is 104 per month.
Posted by Dogsandcats (Member # 28544) on :
I am not an expert....but I want to keep what I know works cause of all my medical issues. I agree with you, but I don't know all the rules....
Posted by randibear (Member # 11290) on :
my sister kept her govt ins. too. her husband had two major heart surgeries. she told me that additional insurance was a blessing.
Posted by Lymetoo (Member # 743) on :
I would keep it.
Posted by poppy (Member # 5355) on :
If you don't have BX or Tricare, only Medicare, you are going to need a gap plan. Otherwise, there will be bills to pay. If you have Medicare and BX, then your drugs are covered and BX picks up what Medicare does not pay. You could end up with almost no bills to pay. That is assuming you do have a lot of medical bills. Not sure how Medicare Advantage fits in, but it has been subsidized by allowing higher payments, which will be reduced in the coming years and that will probably change how it works.
Of course, if these are lyme medical bills, all bets are off, hard to say what anyone will pay.
If you don't enroll in Medicare when you are eligible, but later decide to enroll, the cost will go up each year that you didn't enroll.
Healthcare is so darn complicated, hard to figure out what to do. If you have access to retirees groups of any kind, like AARP, military, etc. they may have people who can help figure it out.
Do you really think they will take away Tricare from former military people? That seems like a very controversial thing to do, and would cause a big stink. Although, with all the injured vets from ten years of war, that certainly has produced a huge workload for the Veterans Administration.
[ 03-29-2014, 10:50 PM: Message edited by: poppy ]
Posted by randibear (Member # 11290) on :
well husband has access to the va. but only vets can use it. its not for dependents.
as for them cancelling retiree benefits, yes, I surely think so. they are closing commissaries at many bases.
they have brought this up before so im sure it will come up again. I mean if they are not providing good benefits for our men and women in uniform, then why would they take care of retirees???
Posted by faithful777 (Member # 22872) on :
I would keep the BC/BS. That with Tricare sounds like a good combination. Medicare has some strange rules for coverage that make it difficult to get them to pay for certain things.
I have Medicare and Tricare. Medicare decided to stop paying for oxygen when my pulsox was only 85. The only way they would continue to pay was if I went through breathing treatments that had steroids in them.
They took my concentrator before I was able to get a new one and had the nerve to ask me to sign an "against medical advice" form when they picked up the unit.
Posted by Judie (Member # 38323) on :
I'd talk to a benefits person at BC/BS. A lot of time there is a coordination of benefits when you qualify for medicare and another insurance.