The Medicare Episode

An Arm and a Leg

Society & Culture, Medicine, Health, Health & Fitness, Documentary

4.8 • 1.1K Ratings

🗓️ 29 February 2024

⏱️ 29 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

Health insurance sucks. Which leaves lots of us counting down the days until we turn 65 and can get on Medicare – the federal government’s health insurance program for seniors.

But Medicare is a lot more complicated – and costs more money – than a lot of us realize. (Also, it involves insurance companies.) And:t There will be huge, complicated decisions to make when you turn 65, that can have huge consequences.

The biggest, and most consequential: Choosing between original Medicare and Medicare Advantage – the privatized version sold by health insurance companies that’s advertised everywhere seniors look.

Some folks who pick Medicare Advantage later regret it — but find there are no do-overs.

We get the scoop from Reporter Sarah Jane Tribble, who’s been covering the story for KFF Health News and the Washington Post.

And we get a preview: What do we all need to know before we hit 65 about the choices we’ll face? There are a lot of options, and a lot of price tags. Sarah Murdoch from the Medicare Right Center gives us an outline of those choices and their consequences — and supplies both tips and resources.

The biggest: When it’s time for you -- or anyone you care about -- to make choices around Medicare, every state has a free source of unbiased advice and information: Here’s a link to find your State Health Insurance Assistance Program (or SHIP).

Here’s a transcript of this episode.

Send your stories and questions. Or call 724 ARM-N-LEG.

And of course we’d love for you to support this show.

Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Hey there? So one thing we've never talked about on this show, Medicare. You know that free health
0:06.1	care thing you may expect to get when you turn 65? It has been on a list of things where I've been like,
0:11.7	that's too big.'s too complicated I can
0:14.9	get my arms around it just now and that's especially because there's this thing
0:19.0	called Medicare Advantage it's a kind of privatized version run by insurance companies seems
0:23.9	controversial and really complicated. So I've been like maybe someday. And that
0:30.5	someday is today or at least we start today. Mainly because a colleague of mine just did a bunch of reporting that we get to piggyback off of.
0:40.0	My name is Sarah Jane Tribble and I am Chief Rural Health Correspondent with KFF Health News.
0:45.2	And as Sarah Jane reported on Medicare, she was surprised by how much she didn't know.
0:49.9	And how much other folks didn't know either.
0:52.3	At Thanksgiving when I was working on some of these stories,
0:54.7	I have friends who are nearing retirement.
0:56.9	They're not really close, but they're close enough to care and they're
0:59.7	avid NPR listeners and they were like, wait wait so what's the difference between Medicare
1:03.3	advantage and Medicare and I was like they should know wait who's gonna tell
1:08.7	them right that's us I guess this show will help tell them I hope so I hope so because this
1:15.6	traditional Medicare versus Medicare Advantage it is a high stakes decision it happens
1:20.7	when you first signed up I mean here's the big thing that Sarah Jane learned.
1:25.0	If you sign up for Medicare Advantage at that point
1:28.0	when you first get on Medicare,
1:30.0	you're pretty much stuck with it.
1:32.0	And some people end up with buyers remorse big time.
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from An Arm and a Leg, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of An Arm and a Leg and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.