Medicare Advantage users respond to NY Times expose of insurance industry.
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January 1 our Illinois retired health insurance Medicare Advantage plan moves from United Healthcare to Aetna.
The Illinois state agency that manages the plans and puts them out to bid promises cheaper costs and no change in coverage.
Many retirees are skeptical about these claims.
I have written that I am currently undergoing a biologic therapy for Crohn’s Disease with a drug that costs $4,000 a pop. The therapy will continue through at least 2023. Because of the cost the therapy it required pre-approval from UH and received it.
Will Aetna also give approval after January 1st?
Stress can be a trigger for Crohn’s flare ups.
This can be stressful.
Meanwhile the NY Times has published an expose of the entire Medicare Advantage scam.
Read the article. Then read what are now more than 2,400 comments to the article, many from victims of MA programs.
“I am a social worker and Geriatric Care Manager. I see the disadvantages of the so called “advantage” plans daily in my practice. Seniors are seduced by the allure of lower premiums not realizing the limitation in benefits when they need the care.”
“Now I understand why NYC is pushing their employees into “advantage” plans.”
“Medicare is a disaster, Medicare Advantage is a total scam. If you want to transfer back to regular Medicare after 12 months (say your "advantage" plan doesn't cover what you have adequately) you will be dinged forever for having a pre-existing condition. That's not what health care should ever be about - Medicare needs to be about health care, not postponing health care, denying health care or drugs, making health care confusing even to those of us with graduate educations or whatever. It's another example of how the U.S. just doesn't get it, and how other countries all over the world actually provide "health care." We do everything by denying, stalling and fatiguing the people we are supposedly "caring" for. It's really disgusting.”
“On March 6 I turned 65 years old. I moved from the Affordable Care Act to Medicare. Can I tell you that I was disappointed and much better off with ACA? I was so confused with what to do with the alphabet soup called Medicare. My gut refused the Advantage plan. I Istarted working delivery newspapers at the age of 12. i have struggled with healthcare all my life. My husband and I were self employed. Good insurance was hard to come by. I delivered my first daughter and discovered my insurance didn't cover childbirth!!! How is childbirth not healthcare.? Well I guess now we all know that after the Supreme Court decision on the Dobbs case because we now know that a woman's health is not as valuable as a nonviable fetus. I'm glad you are now woke NYT but it's not just Medicare it's American healthcare.”
“As if we needed further proof, this proves that so-called free-market capitalism as practiced in this country is corrupt and rapacious.”
And now CVS Health, which owns Aetna, told investors its practices were being investigated by the Department of Justice.