Posted on 10/20/2025 8:48:19 AM PDT by Sequoyah101
This time it is breath taking. Our Plan G premium went up 37%.
Here we go again. Spin the roulette wheel of health care costs and see how high they go. Wonder if it is you being singled out or another gift to the state board of insurance or just what it is and how much.
I really don’t understand any of this. So if there is a potential to have a problem..and as you age it is an obvious risk...it is better to stay on Medigap because you can’t go back?
I already have multiple rare issues. Does Medigap have to take me in the beginning?
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Yes, at the beginning, age 65, your pre-existing med issues cannot be used to screen you out of Medigap.
This thread’s conversation is not about that. It is about loss of Part D plans. If you have Medigap, you will add a Part D plan to that for specific drugs.
If the Part D plan/company shuts its doors, then how do you get your drugs? An answer is Advantage, which has its own drug plans built in (though you must have your agent verify that specific Advantage plan covers your specific drug).
Whether or not you have heard of disaster scenarios with Advantage doesn’t matter. Those *may* happen, but if you can’t get a needed drug then *that* disaster ***will*** happen.
We have Aetna Medicare Advantage. No monthly premium. Hospital stays cost $298 for the first 5 days then its 100% covered. In 2026 its increasing to $398. ER is $110, primary physician $5 per visit, specialist $40. $1200 per year dental coverage going to $2,000 in 2026. I think $350 per year for vision. MRI is $300 co-pay, colonoscopy $300 co-pay. Tier 1-2 drugs have no annual deductible. Tier 3 drugs like my asthma inhaler have a $590 annual deductible. All in all its fantastic insurance.
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Sounds like a great plan, provided you’re not in the hospital for weeks (which can happen). Then that Advantage company is providing you that hospital stay with no co-pay. It will be stressed.
Call your local Medicare Insurance Agent and ask them if they think you might want to add a Hospital Indemnity plan t your Advantage. It won’t be free. It costs about 40% of a Medigap plan’s premium.
Is this a Medigap plan supplemental to Medicare?
Wednesday was open and rolling so I went to check to see what the prices were for my Medicare plans. I was expecting a big increase in the drug plan, but to my surprise not only was there no increase. My premium went to zero and I am with Humana.
Now I have a Medigap Medicare supplement plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield and I thought it might go up but it pretty much stayed the same at $44 a month
So the only thing that went up was the part B premium on Medicare.
Anthem has dropped their Medicare Part D drug coverage.
I switched to Wellcare as of the first of next year.
Thanks to everyone here about Medicare Advantage plans.
$44/month suggests some special geographic region and probably the Medigap F option (high deductible). That is a great premium, given that in 2023 the average Medigap monthly premium for all the options from G to F to whatever . . . was $213.
Good data.
Advantage has disaster scenario stories. Talk to your agent. The solution seems to be Hospital Indemnity Plans added to Advantage.
I am beginning to wonder if Medicare Supplemental Plan G (and similar) premiums, with the top insurers. are experiencing increases to cover struggling earnings in the insurers “Medicare Advantage” plans.
[Many Medicare Advantage insurers are losing money or finding their profit margins squeezed due to increased medical costs and changes in federal payments and regulations. This is leading some major companies to scale back their offerings, exit certain markets, and reduce benefits for 2026.]
Are those of us who took Medicare Supplemental Plan G insurance (with additional monthly premiums on top of the Medicare premium - to better cover, up front, some major costs that exceed the medicare maximum covered costs) now subsidizing the money losing Medicare Advantage plans??
I think Congress should investigate and if my suspicion is correct, then the insurers should be required to raise additional Medicare Advantage premiums of their own, on top of the Medicare Premium they get from the government, for those that want to stay in a Medicare Advantage plan. For those who don’t want the extra premium standard Medicare is still available.
Medicare Supplemental Plan G premiums should not be covering loses or insufficient profits in Medicare Advantage Plans.
I thought it was 90 days
We have Anthem medigap plan F. So far we have been very satisfied with our coverage. We will do a complete review for 2027. Thank you for the insight into hospital indemnity plans.
I live in Pulaski county Arkansas so I have a Medicare Medigap plan from Blue Cross Blue Shield. It’s a plan G high deductible so that’s why it’s $44 a month.
Medicare Advantage plans are the pits.
They they are preferred provider networks and the network restrictions - and annual changes of what providers are in or no longer in the network - are playing havoc with quality of care by playing havoc with finding a provider in the network.
A sibling of mine in an Aetna Medicare Advantage plan, in the last four years has had his available primary care doctors dumped from the network, his cardiologists changed twice, and in the last year had a radiology diagnostic provider (x-rays, cat scans, pet scans, ultra sound) changed twice and last change - just a couple months ago - had his last radiology clinic changed from one six miles from home to one forty miles from home - and all of this in a very well populated upscale area of southern California with thousands of existing providers of all types - just 90% not in Aetna’s Medicare Advantage plan’s network.
He actually does not need most of the “freebies” in the Medicare Advantage plan. I have advised him to quit Aetna and go back to standard Medicare. His old primary care doctor group even told him two years ago that were he in standard Medicare and not Aetna’s plan, he would have been able to stay with them.
What is done if local Part D plans disappear? This is the entire motivation behind the Advantage convo in this thread.
That’s a great price. Keep an eye on your Part D plan.
When we turned 65, my wife and I both enlisted in Plan G through Mutual of Omaha. She was getting cancer treatments that cost $70,000 a month! With Plan G our combined monthly premium payment was only $350 (and I was two-thirds of that.) Our deductibles were only a little over $200 each for the entire year.
This past year my monthly payment increased from $200 to 240. My wife has since passed away and my medical bills do not really warrant me staying on Plan G. If my premium increases as much as yours did, I will seriously consider switching to an advantage plan and having no monthly premium at the expense of having deductibles.
Your thoughts?
There can be downsides to Advantage, which are addressable.
The question is what drugs do you need and is the Part D plan in your area 1) still existing and 2) covering what drugs you need.
Advantage has built-in Part D.
Part D - Social Security Prescription Drug Plans - cannot “disappear” “locally” or otherwise. If any insurer drops their coverage for Medicare Part D, within their Medicare Advantage Plan, those who are in their plan can switch their Part D coverage to standard Medicare Part D. Yes it means Social Security will deduct the standard Medicare Part D premium. That will be about $40/month in 2026 - or $480/year. From what I have seen with the restrictions in the insurers Medicare Advantage plans, it would be worth $480 a year to escape them.
Why does this all have to be so darn complicated? Need an accountant to figure it all out!
In the past year I had two minor operations, with total in-hospital expenses of at least $13,000, and with the paltry sum covered by Medicare and what was covered by my Supplemental Plan G coverage, I owed -————— $243.
That is the sort of thing I anticipated when I chose to have a supplemental G plan on top of Medicare.
I can take the monthly premium’s - so far. I cannot take thousand$ in sudden medical expenses.
If any insurer drops their coverage for Medicare Part D, within their Medicare Advantage Plan, those who are in their plan can switch their Part D coverage to standard Medicare Part D.
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That’s not the subject. The subject is Part D plans are disappearing. They lost critical money in the Inflation Reduction Act.
The only reason Advantage enters the chat is because if a local Part D plan disappears or stops covering a critical drug, then Advantage is the only option with their built-in drug plan.
Has nothing to do with other aspects of Medigap vs Advantage. This is about the situation as it exists this moment.
Are Part D plans disappearing?
AI: Yes.
and scrolling up you will find the rest of that answer
Why does this all have to be so darn complicated? Need an accountant to figure it all out!
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Medicare being limited to 80% coverage is the source of all of this insanity. If it was 100% coverage, this entire Advantage/Medigap industry and all people around it (like Medicare Insurance agents) would disappear.
It would be totally national healthcare for 65+ instead of merely 80% coverage. This would generate conservative rage — but mostly or only in those under 65.
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