Medicare Advantage open enrollment season.

Say it isn't so, Joe Namath.

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A few months ago Illinois’ retired teacher members of TRS who use TRAIL, our subsidized Medicare Advantage plan, were informed that we would be switched from United Healthcare to Aetna.

Central Management Services, the state agency that bargains the contracts for these things, assured us that the Aetna plan would not change our coverage but would lower the price.

We will see.

The thing about CMS negotiating all this is that we are not the target of all the Medicare Advantage advertisements that has begun now that we are in open enrollment until December.

Medicare is government healthcare.

Medicare Advantage is privatized senior healthcare that supplements what Medicare does not cover.

Half of those on Medicare now are enrolled in some Medicare Advantage plan.

But there are dozens of different plans that compete for seniors healthcare dollars and the plans frequently are not the best choice.

But wading through all the choices and marketing is enough to make you crazy.

Mark Miller who writes at Morningstar:

Medicare actually provides the best protection against out-of-pocket costs when coupled with a Medigap supplemental plan. If you are in Medicare Advantage, you carry the risk of additional costs up to your plan’s annual out-of-pocket limit. Those costs averaged $4,972 this year for in-network services, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation.

The huge marketing budgets supporting sales of Medicare Advantage plans create an uneven playing field for consumers choosing between Advantage plans and traditional Medicare during Medicare’s annual enrollment period, which runs from Oct. 15 through Dec. 7.

There simply are no big advertising budgets supporting traditional Medicare, which allows you to visit nearly any healthcare provider in the United States. That feature has become extremely rare in most health insurance plans, and it could be a matter of life and death if you receive a diagnosis of a serious illness and want to seek out care from a top-rated specialist or facility that might not be in a Medicare Advantage network.

As I’ve written about, I have recently been diagnosed with Crohn’s disease and I am being treated with an infusion drug that costs $4,000 a dose plus the additional cost of the procedure. It’s not a pill I can take at home. I must go to a medical infusion center to have an IV inserted in my arm

Medicare and my teacher retirement healthcare plan cover most of the costs and I have an out of pocket cap of $1100 a year.

I’m hoping that none of this changes when we go from United Healthcare to Aetna.

That’s clearly better than the average $4,972.

Private Medicare Advantage plans are not the best for everyone and privatized medical insurance is not the best for anyone.

The same infusion drug for Crohn’s I am taking is free to all in Canada where they have national health care.

And no Joe Namath ads.