Medicare Advantage plans, from for profit insurance companies, are being rebranded Medicare Reach.
They seem like a good deal. They are if you are healthy forever! So what is the catch?
In Michigan I go to look at a nursing home with a friend. The administrator shows us around. Small rooms with two beds. We also look at an assisted living. Much larger rooms, the friend can stay overnight in the private room with the parent, at a cost of $4000.00 per month. Her insurance will not cover it.
But back to the nursing home. The administrator tells us that it’s good that her parent does NOT have a medicare advantage or medicare reach plan. “It is nearly impossible to get the insurance companies to approve a rehabilitation stay at a nursing home.”
“Really?” I say.
“Oh, really.” She says. “The insurance companies certainly don’t want you to know that when you buy their “deal”.”
So, the for profit insurance companies want you if you are of medicare age and are well. BUT the catch is that they really don’t want to cover if you are sick. Think carefully before you buy a pig in a poke!
Physicians for a National Healthcare Program is working to stop the insurance companies from skimming profit off the healthier elders and then abandoning them when they are not healthy. I wish that the United States citizens would clue in, get mad, and vote for single payer! Write your congresspeople and put pressure on them! They listen to money but in the end, they live by votes. Make sure you look at the fine print, because the insurance company is there to make a profit off you, not preserve your health.
The picture is Mordechai, our plastic clinic skeleton, distrusting Profit-Over-Health Insurance Companies.
KO Rural Mad As Hell Blog 
I’ve stayed with a regular supplement just figuring that the claims of something for nothing couldn’t be true. Hearing all the horror stories convinced me that all their mailings were only good for starting the stove fire with.
Every day I thank the fates for giving me a job at San Diego State and the insurance that came with it.
Whew, that is great that you have that!
Agreed. There is a large company that sells lots of Medicare Advantage plans. They are cheap. When it is time to discharge from the hospital, they seldom pay for rehab and often decide they won’t cover the inpatient stay. Folks seem to forget that the purpose of insurance companies is to make money and the best way to make money is to collect premiums and not cover losses.
Oh it’s ridiculous that we won’t (not can’t) provide decent healthcare to all our citizens!
And it is the responsibility of our voters to finally say “We want single payer, medicare for all.”