That complicated mess that they call "Medicare"

Medicare is supposed to help Seniors. But in reality, it's a mess that forces the elderly to risk their hard-earned savings in gambling-like choices to get service. It must be simplified for Seniors!

By Ray Hanania

FREE/Medicare Seniors Baby Boomers/Sunday, May 11, 2025

I’ve been lucky that I have been able to continue to work and will continue well into my 70s.

Writing and providing some media advice is a passion more than a hard-working job so I can’t complain. I’ve always had good health insurance, which, as it turns out, is probably the most important thing that Americans really need. So, I never had to turn to Medicare.

But, like all Baby Boomers, I think about it. And I took the time to call Medicare to ask some questions about Part A and B, and what is the difference?

It turns out I have Part A automatically when I started collecting Social Security. I’ve been working full-time since I was 14 years old. I’ve always had work and never had to talk unemployment compensation or seek public assistance, welfare or any financial support to live.

That’s sad that that is considered “lucky,” I guess.

I figure, though, that at some point, I’ll have to do it. So I called and asked, “Can you explain what Part B is and when it is needed?”

Turns out it is a simple question. The problem is they made Medicare into one of the most complicated government services ever, a service that is funded by the money hardworking Americans like you and me have paid for through taxes taken out of our income. A tax!

It took the nice woman with the great attitude 49 minutes to explain it to me on the telephone. I had to struggle through her lengthy answer.

All she had to say was that you don’t need Part B if you are receiving health insurance from a company, etc. You only need it to replace your healthcare.

Most importantly, she emphasized how they charge you for Part B, as much as $180 a month.

But there is a “Big But” in there, like there is in anything related to the Federal government. Medicare doesn’t just charge you every month for receiving Part B. They charge you in a big installment, she said, between three and five months at a time.

What the Hell is that about?

There are so many segues, cul-de-sacs, and dead ends in Medicare services that it is impossible for any intelligent person not being paid by the government to understand it. There is no simple process. Medicare is like a casino where Seniors are forced to gamble and take risks with their money, never knowing if they will benefit for sure.

No wonder It's pathetic.

There are enrollment periods, penalties, and excess charges for not doing it the “right way.”

In other words, Americans who worked all their lives and paid an enormous part of their income into government taxes, Federal and State, are punished when they try to collect on their forced tax investment in Medicare.

Who came up with this stupid system?

What shyster wrote the Medicare System?

I haven’t even gotten into the most difficult parts, Part C and Part D. And I haven’t addressed how companies have been created to milk your money by allegedly offering Part C and Part D options, lying to you in expensive commercials every day on television?

These companies that claim to offer you better options for health care are paying a fortune in advertising costs, and no one is challenging them. They are making that money by lying to you. about options and exploiting a system they understand better than the elderly, who are in need.

And who did they create Medicare for? The elderly who need it the most, or for the health insurance industry robber barons who profit from it, and see it as an easy way to generate profits and excess revenues.

America’s health insurance system is the worst. Seniors are the biggest victims of this complicated system that was created to generate profits for insurance companies and private companies that claim to help seniors pick the best options, when they do not.

That’s why I didn’t shed one tear when I heard that the CEO of United Healthcare had been shot and killed by a disgruntled American upset about health insurance industry scams. He was earning $10 million a year, denying insurance services to other needy. The guy that took his place is earning $16.4 million. plus other perqs.

I don’t sympathize with them and neither does the American people!

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“A new poll shows most Americans believe health insurance profits and coverage denials share responsibility for the killing of UnitedHealthcare CEO Brian Thompson. However, not as much responsibility as the person who shot him, a new poll shows.” Click to read story!

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The Federal Government should create one health care system and eliminate the insurance company profiteers. They should put profit limits on the insurance companies. No health insurance executive should make more than $500,000 a year, tops! All the money should go to provide quality health care to the needy, mostly seniors.

I understand the anger at the health insurance industry. It’s earned anger and hatred. Health insurance executives are making hundreds of millions in profits, and their CEOs and managers make fortunes in annual incomes. They live lives of luxury and comfort while the people who pay into the system struggle to earn money to pay their bills, all while being lied to by politicians from Congress members to Presidents.

In contrast, most of the people who pay for health insurance are suffering, get inadequate care, and are forced to pay beyond their retirement means.

“Oh, gasoline prices are only $1.50 a gallon,” that idiot president asserted several weeks ago. “Costs are down,” he lied.

No. Costs are not down.

When is the Federal Government going to care about the American people instead of its own egos and profits?

Someone. Needs to simplify Medicare and provide the health services that seniors need more than any other age group.

Seniors are also the age group that suffers the most cognitively, as we saw happen to former President Joe Biden. Don’t worry, President Trump is on his way to the same fate as we all eventually are.

But don’t you think that if you are going to provide a service to seniors that they paid for through their decades of hard work and taxes, that it would be a system that would be easy to understand? Shouldn’t it be a system that would be simple to engage and use?

This country is in trouble because we don’t have politicians who care about the people. They only care about themselves.

I don’t care whether a candidate for Congress, the Senate, or the presidency is a Republican or Democrat. I care if they have answers to our problems, and you should too.

Don’t give them your vote if they don’t give you the respect you deserve.