Working with elderly for years, it seems to me it has always been this way. Once you sign up for SS, you have to take medicare. If you have a retirement plan with private, or pay for your own policy, those become secondary, medicare is primary. And if your doctor does not take medicare, you must change doctors, cannot revert to your private insurance, that is solely for additional charges to you above and beyond medicare. If medicare does not cover a procedure, your insurance may or may not cover it.
Elderly DO NOT love medicare, they simply have no choice.
And if a person does not qualify,and doesn't want to qualify, at age 65, they can be qualified through their spouses social security,whether they like it or not. - tom
It’s was only a couple of years ago when my company changed to having Medicare primary. Prior to that, the company medical plan was primary, Medicare secondary. Good retirement benefits was always a big plus when working for this Fortune 500 company — now I might as well be working for Walmart as far as retirement benefits go.