I also recently became eligible for medicare-and kept my military insurance as my secondary coverage-even though I work 40 hrs per week at a physical job, don’t go to a doc unless I’m injured, use only vitamins and natural supplements, do not/have never taken drugs-prescription or illegal-seldom even use aspirin, weigh the same 110 that I did at 17, and eat only unprocessed food, I have the same amount deducted from my survivors benefit check as someone who goes to a doc for every sniffle and takes hundreds of $$$ of prescription drugs every month-and has all the side effects and interactions-totally unfair.
I’d love a private option that would reward me for taking care of my own health with a lower premium-it also bites that even though I’m an independent contract worker, if I make enough money to actually live on in a year, I still pay into the system...
Actually, one of my main objections to Medicare is the unbelievable government interference with the ability to contract.
When you became eligible for Medicare, you automatically became ineligible for any other kind of insurance in the US. No company is even allowed to write you a policy once you are over the age of 65 unless it’s in the Medicare framework.
There is no private insurance after 65 in the traditional sense. There is privately managed care, via Part C, or supplemental policies that pick up what Part B doesn’t cover, but everything runs under the Medicare umbrella and regulations.