ABCD

Medicare has parts. Each part has a piece of your overall retirement health insurance plan.  It’s amazing to think that Medicare has been around for over 50 years. You might be surprise by how much coverage and features you will have with Medicare.  In the next few post let’s understand what each part does in the overall plan. Let’s start with part “A,” hospital insurance.  This is the part that you were paying for in your working years.  It covers the cost of a stay in the hospital.  This is also the part that will cover the cost if you need hospice care in your life.  It does help with a short term nursing home stay, but this is not going to cover a long term need.  It’s free in the sense that there are no monthly fees or premiums, but there are cost.  “A” by its self has a deductible of $1,408 (2020) meaning that if you are admitted to a hospital you are going to be charged for the first $1,408  of the expenses. (That should take care of the first 5 minutes) You are okay for the first 60 days with no additional cost, but then the meter starts to run.  The next 30 days will cost you $352 per day.  (I wonder if I can check into the Hilton instead) After that it is $704 per day until you exhaust your lifetime reserve allotment of 60 days. (If you stay beyond 90 days in the hospital you start to use up the reserve days) For example, some guy texting missed the light change. You end up in a coma for 150 days.  You wake up ready to go on day 151 and then they hand you the hospital bill.  It’s over $54,000 and they have 10 doctors line up outside your room with their bills. You vow never to leave your house again, but wait, there is an alternate ending.  Come back for the happy ending that does not include bankruptcy.