RHP Market Talk
Complicated economic topics distilled into digestible and palatable investing principles.
Hosted by Natalie Picha, Partner and CXO of RHP Wealth Management.
RHP Market Talk
Your Medicare Roadmap: Timing, Coverage, and Choosing the Right Plan
In this installment of Market Talk, Co-Founder and CXO Natalie Picha talks to Brian Hickey, Vice President of Medicare Back Office, a team of dedicated, licensed insurance agents providing nationwide Medicare advice. Their discussion includes:
• The differences between Part A and Part B, and how to decide if you need a Medicare Supplement plan
• What is Medicare Advantage, and what does the county I live in have to do with anything?
• The importance of annual reviews of your Medicare benefits
• When you should start exploring your options
Experience the difference of working with a firm that empowers your life—a firm that focuses on what matters most—you.
Whether you are beginning your financial journey now or have already taken steps toward your ultimate life goals, we are here to guide you.
https://podcasts.apple.com/us/podcast/rhp-market-talk/id1538051530
Welcome to RHP Market Talk, produced by RHP Wealth Management, an independent financial services and investment advisory firm based in Houston, Texas. I'm Natalie Picha, one of the founding partners in CXO, and today I'm excited to say that I'm being joined by our special guest, Brian Hickey. Welcome, Brian.
Brian Hickey:Natalie thanks so much. It's great to be here.
Natalie Picha:So Brian is a Medicare specialist with Medicare Back Office and for those of you staring down the Medicare enrollment deadlines, or already on Medicare, this conversation is going to be for you. Or already on Medicare, this conversation is going to be for you. So Brian is the vice president of Medicare Back Office. He brings with him more than a decade of experience in strategic and sales roles at two of the nation's largest insurance company. His passion helps shape the vision of his firm by setting its strategic direction.
Natalie Picha:Outside of the office, Brian loves spending time with his wife and four children, the latter of which are certainly involved in a variety of sports and school activities, and Brian also loves to golf and hunt when he has an opportunity to sneak away. So, Brian, thank you so much for joining us. This is going to be a really great conversation. I think our listeners are going to be excited to hear what you have to say, and I have to know I mean like woohoo, Medicare, I want to do that for a living. Tell me a little bit about your background and how you managed to end up in this particular role.
Brian Hickey:Yeah, it's a great question. I'm not sure it's a great story, but it's a great question. Natalie, I've actually been in the insurance industry since 1997. So I graduated from college and I was trying. I really, for whatever reason, wanted to be a US federal marshal, um, and at the time they only interviewed or only tested every two years. And I was in between times my dad at the time was a chief underwriter at Mutual of Omaha, um, and we're, you know, we're based here in Omaha, Nebraska. I'm, I'm here, uh, born and raised. And he said look, you gotta go do something, you gotta, you gotta make money. So go to Mutual see what they have.
Brian Hickey:And I was licensed in November of 97 and began offering insurance solutions right then and there. And as I got into it I realized how much help people needed, not just in Medicare, across insurance. But I really kind of navigated more to the Medicare side of things. I've done kind of everything, but for the most part it's been Medicare and I've never really looked back and I couldn't be more happy with the career choice and where we're at. In today's environment, I would not have been a good US Marshal. I think I'm an okay Medicare guy, but certainly not a US Marshal, and it's been, you know, almost 30 years, which is hard for me to say out loud that we've been involved in really what I say making a difference in people's lives to make sure they understand things that can be very complicated, like Medicare.
Natalie Picha:Yeah, wow. Well, it's interesting that a little bit of a legacy there from your, from your dad to you, that's pretty. Well, and in 30 years, I bet you've seen it all. I always say as a financial advisor we have stories like so many.
Natalie Picha:Yeah, we have so many stories. And you're right, medicare I mean insurance as a whole is very, very complex and it's very confusing for people. And then Medicare you just throw that on top of it with all the deadlines and everything it gets nuts. So I want to just kind of jump right into kind of one of the big questions that I get. A lot is well, I'm still working, I love my insurance, I don't want to change any of my benefits and I'm turning 65, you know next year. What do you say to people like that?
Brian Hickey:Yeah, it's a great question, and it comes up and it's n, come, obviously, as people are working later and te continued predominantly la life, and so, care is really triggered by Social Security, whether you elect Social Security or not. If you elect Social Security prior to the time you turn 65, medicare Part A, which is the hospital insurance, is automatic. You automatically get it. You don't have to, and that's OK. You should typically do that even if you're continuing t wor
Brian Hickey:Where the issue comes is delaying your Medicare Part B. So again, social Security if I've elected Social Security and there are obviously plenty of Social Security timing options on when elected Social Security, and there are obviously plenty of Social Security timing options on when you should or should not, and obviously RHP can help with the timing of Social Security but if they're already on Medicare excuse me, if they're already on Social Security, medicare Part A is automatic. If it's not, they then have to apply through Social Security in order to get Medicare Part A. Part A is the hospital insurance, medicare Part B is the doctor's insurance and you can delay Medicare Part B as you're working without any penalties in a couple different scenarios. But the one piece of advice I would give is to not automatically think that your employer group coverage is better or cheaper than the Medicare coverage. At least look at the plans side-by-side to try to determine what's the best option for you, both benefit and cost-wise.
Natalie Picha:Right, that's very good advice. We had a client that we were advising that he should take the Medicare options, but he was sort of in that camp of but I love my and I don't want to change and this, this and that, and ultimately, financially, it would have been better to go ahead and make that Medicare switch. Better to go ahead and make that Medicare switch. So so what are your options for health insurance at age 65 plus? Like, what else could you do? Right, what are your options out there?
Brian Hickey:Yeah, so you could do nothing, right? You could continue on your employer group coverage If you wanted to. You could go into Medicare and explore that option, or you can just you don't have to have your employer group coverage and you don't have to have any of the supplemental plans around Medicare. You could just have original Medicare. I would not advise people to do that, even though what I get, natalie is well, look, I paid for Medicare.
Brian Hickey:Why do I now have to pay a premium? Shouldn't this be free? I've been taxed my whole life, and that's true, and as much as we've been taxed our entire lives. It's specifically for Medicare Part A, for the hospital insurance. So you do not have to pay a premium as long as you've worked 10 years or 40 quarters right, which the majority of people have. If you haven't, or you have, if you haven't done that, you can pay a premium in order to get the Part A hospital insurance.
Brian Hickey:But again, most of it is typically premium free when it comes to to the medicare part a. But that doesn't mean that you don't have deductibles. It doesn't mean you don't have co-pays, co-insurance, out-of-pocket costs across the board. And if you stick with original medicare because you're you're trying to save, you're going to end up spending a lot more, especially if you have a catastrophic health event down the road, which obviously, as we age, the higher the likelihood of that happening is, and you usually don't want to get caught in one of those situations with just Original Medicare. So you have the option stay on Original Medicare or go into Original Medicare, don't do anything. Go on to original Medicare and get some type of supplemental coverage to help fill in the gaps, or stay on your employer group coverage.
Natalie Picha:And then? So what are all the supplemental? I mean options, and this is where it gets super confusing.
Brian Hickey:I know it does.
Natalie Picha:What are those options and how should people think about working with someone like your firm to understand all their options when it comes to the supplements?
Brian Hickey:Yeah, it's a great question and you are 1000% correct when it becomes very confusing because primarily there's two options there's Medicare supplement or Medigap and there's Medicare Advantage plans.
Brian Hickey:So let's start with Medicare Supplement. Medicare Supplement I like to refer to it as paying up front. You're paying up front for your healthcare. It's going to be more expensive than your alternative, your Medicare Advantage. So you may spend $100, $200 depending on your age and where your location $300 a month for a Medicare supplement. But you get peace of mind knowing that you don't have to pay co-insurance. There are no co-pays, there are no networks. You don't have to worry about going to a provider or a specialist that may or may not be in or out of the network. You know, by paying your premium to the Medicare Supplement Insurance Company, as long as your provider accepts Medicare, you can go see that provider regardless, regardless of where they're located and regardless of the reason you're seeing them. So that's really good. But it only covers the Medicare, the only the health insurance. That's it. It does not cover anything else. If if you want a Medicare supplement to to supplement those gaps, you also probably need to look at things like dental insurance, vision and hearing and certainly prescription drug coverage. All of those are offered separately. So you have your Medicare supplement kind of in the center and then your dental vision, hearing. All these things are around that you can choose to enroll in those or choose not to. Up to you, right.
Brian Hickey:If you look at the alternative with Medicare Advantage and I will tell you we are seeing more and more enrollments in Medicare Advantage than we have in the past five years. Right now there are about it's about 53% 54% of all folks eligible for Medicare are on a Medicare Advantage plan, with the remaining being on a Medicare supplement. Five years ago that was reversed and part of it is the cost. So again, if you think about Medicare supplement, it's paying up front. Medicare Advantage is paying as you go and that sounds attractive to a lot of people. I don't want to pay for health insurance that I'm not going to use or that I never go to the doctor. That's what we hear a lot of why people may want to go to a Medicare Advantage plan. It's also typically cheaper, premium wise. You may not have to pay a premium at all. It may be a $0 premium, but that doesn't mean that you're not going to pay. It just means you're going to pay as you get services and there are more restrictions and there are more constraints. There are networks. It's much more similar to your employer group coverage, which a lot of people fail to make that connection, but a lot of folks in employer group coverage. You have a network, you have co-pays, you have co-insurance, there's a maximum out of pocket on the Medicare Advantage plan and the one thing. So our firm will really get in the weeds with the decision, much like your firm does.
Brian Hickey:On the financial planning side, one size doesn't fit all and especially in the Medicare marketplace. We hear constantly my neighbor has X, Y and Z and I think that's what I should have, and quite often that's usually not the case because it's a completely different circumstance. The neighbor hasn't shared everything that they shared with us, which made us kind of advise the Medicare Advantage route or the Medicare supplement route. So we really try to take an individualized, agnostic approach to Medicare and make sure that those folks are in the right plan. Now that could be just the plan for 12-month 12 Health insurance when you turn 65, used to be set it and forget it. It has to be actively managed, just like their financial plan. Now things change, the market changes, prices, everything changes. So reviewing it at least on an annual basis is really, really important.
Natalie Picha:And I love the fact that you said there is no one size fits all and we get similar, we get very similar stories coming into our office. Well, you know, my neighbor invested in Bitcoin and made all this money, right? Well, what's interesting is particularly when it comes to your health. Right, your own health is so very specific. Are you taking prescriptions, not taking prescriptions? What's your longevity, what's your, your genetic? You know predisposition, all those different things. And then I think this is this has always been so interesting to me, and clients will say this did you know that your zip code matters? Blame that. Why does your zip code matter? Right, that's a, that's a thing.
Brian Hickey:It is and it gets so detailed. So the zip code matters, but only on Medicare supplement. The county matters on Medicare Advantage and that's how they develop and manufacture those products in specific places. So on the Medicare supplement side they group a zip code as a pool of insureds. That zip code may have a much higher claims or lower claims than the zip code next to them, and so you could see a rate increase go for a particular plan. So for example, on the Medicare supplement side, what I didn't mention previously is the other one of the other really big benefits of it. The benefits are all the same. So it doesn't matter if you have plan G, for example, as in Gary, which has specific benefits, if you have that from a company like Mutual of Omaha and your neighbor has a plan from UnitedHealthcare plan G. The benefits underlying those plans are exactly the same. So you don't have to worry about going to different companies and saying, okay, tell me all your benefits, because what the benefit is for one is the benefit for all. So quite often then we hear people say well, if the benefits are the same, the plans are the same. Shouldn't I just go for the cheapest plan Because that would make the most sense and we always say you're going to get what you pay for.
Brian Hickey:The marketplace is as kind of the you know it's the elephant through the garden hose people turning 65 and we it's so many 10,000, 11,000 turning 65 every single day. Well, some of the insurance companies saw that as a huge opportunity and so they were not involved in what I would consider the senior or Medicare market. They decide to get into it, but they don't know anything about the market. They don't know how to get into it, but they don't know anything about the market. They don't know how to price the products. They certainly are not familiar with the claims or the volume of claims. So what happens is they start taking these large rate increases. They very cheap upfront, it attracts a lot of people, and then the next year it's a 20 or a 30% rate increase and the year after that's 20 or 30%, and all of a sudden now you're paying almost double because you didn't do the research upfront to make sure that.
Brian Hickey:What is the history? What's the rate history for that particular carrier? Have they been able to manage it? And I so zip code related on Medicare supplement. On Medicare advantage, it's County, um, and on Medicare advantage. You see, some insurance companies may be in a particular County one year and they'll pull out of that County If they feel that they're not getting the claims experience that they need. Um, they will completely remove the plan from that County for the following year and then the clients left to either choose another Medicare Advantage plan or potentially now select a Medicare supplement. So it's very detailed in how they price and offer the different plans and products on both sides of that.
Natalie Picha:Wow, so much to navigate. So what do you recommend for those that are already on? They're already on Medicare and we know Medicare open enrollment happens in October and it's always a thing. How far in advance does someone need to start thinking about this? We need to touch on the windows, right, and what that means, because it's important. But if someone's already on Medicare, right, what is your recommendation for going ahead and getting ahead of and looking at that? And you know, do they need to move zip codes? Is that what they need to do?
Brian Hickey:Well, we've had people move states, in particular I mean not specifically for Medicare, but certainly the snowbirds and people that maybe are initially in Ohio and might think about spending some time in Florida, and then they hear some of the health insurance rates and they say, no, I think we'll remain in Ohio because it's a lot cheaper, but yeah. So if they're already on Medicare again, I think the most important thing is to actively manage it. The difficult part about it is if they're on a Medicare Advantage and or prescription drug coverage. That's really what the open enrollment, which starts October 1st, is really meant to review plan designs for the following year. So what happens on Medicare Advantage and prescription drug coverage?
Brian Hickey:Because it's administered by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services or the federal government, it's really on a calendar year basis. So they submit plans in. They have to be submitted typically by June. Federal government looks through all of those to determine, make sure all the things that are in place, and then we get notified, usually in October, end of September, beginning of October, of what plans are available for the following calendar year.
Natalie Picha:Wow, that's not very much time.
Brian Hickey:It is pure chaos during that time because the confusing part of it is it doesn't that open enrollment doesn't apply to everybody. If you're on a Medicare supplement, you can typically change a Medicare supplement any time of the year. You don't have to wait for open enrollment. And most people get that confused because they see all the commercials and Joe Namath is on this commercial, you know, and they're telling me I need to pick up the phone and call uh and and get my Medicare done by the end of the open enrollment. And um, that's true for prescription drug plans, it's true for Medicare Advantage, it's not true for Medicare Supplement. So that is a very big confusing piece of it.
Brian Hickey:But we do have quite a few of our Medicare Supplement clients choose that time. Since they're going to review their Medicare Prescription drug coverage, they feel they might as well review the Medicare Supp supplement coverage as well, and so we do that. If they're already on Medicare, we'll continue to review what their current plan is. If there's other options that we can help them save money, then we may move them to a different Medicare supplement plan. But primarily that open enrollment is for prescription drug coverage, medicare Advantage, and we can't really tell you about the new plans until October 1st, which makes it a little crazy, excuse me that does make it absolutely that window.
Natalie Picha:So let's talk about windows. I mean, there's all these deadlines, right? Oh, if you miss this deadline and that deadline and all these different things, what are the deadlines Like? What are the real deadlines?
Brian Hickey:enrollment period and that's when you can enroll in Medicare. So if you think about the previous example of already elected social security, I'm going to be on Medicare part A when I turn 65, the first day of the month in which I turned 65. So August 15th is my 65th birthday. When am I eligible for Medicare? I'm eligible to apply for Medicare three months before I turned 65, the month that I turned 65, and then three months after. So if we take that August 15th birth date, then I can apply for Medicare as early as May 1st, three months before the birth month that I turned 65. So that would be May 1st. I have my entire month, birth month to also enroll, and then three months after. So that becomes a seven month window where somebody can enroll in Medicare without any penalties at all. Now that doesn't mean you enroll in A and B. It means you enroll in A and you determine whether or not you should take partB because there are more expenses with part B. There's some other things that we can get into that, but you have to really decide whether or not you want to delay Part B If you're still working and you've compared and contrasted your current employer group plan against Medicare and you feel like and we help you feel like the employer group is the plan to stay in, then you would delay your Part B. If not, what happens is you go into part B, you have to pay a premium and then you can get penalized on the back end depending on which supplemental type of plan you choose to go into which gets really far into the weeds.
Brian Hickey:But in that particular scenario you have that three months before the month of three months after. If you miss that and anymore we don't have a lot of folks that miss that but if they do miss that, then Medicare has a general enrollment period which is January 1st to March 31st. So my scenario I've turned 65 August 15th. I didn't do it before, didn't do it after. I've got two months and then January 1st I can enroll in the general election general enrollment period because I missed the initial enrollment period. My next Medicare would be in force then February 1st of that year. In those situations there are penalties if they did miss that initial enrollment period. There's some exceptions, but there are also penalties if those exceptions are not met wow, okay, yeah, lots to think about they don't.
Brian Hickey:They don't make it easy, do they not?
Natalie Picha:No, they do not.
Natalie Picha:They're not going to make it easy on you at all, um, okay, so you're not going to take social security. You have to go ahead and start part a. Now you have to determine are you going to do an advantage plan or you're going to do the supplement plan? You got to think about your county, your zip code, plus what you actually do for your health, like what doctors you see, what supplements you take. What do you see as the biggest mistakes that people make when it comes to all of these different things? Because there's just so much to have to manage, right.
Brian Hickey:Yeah, I, it's, you know it.
Brian Hickey:It never ceases to amaze me. They try to make it. You know, I think when I say they, I think the, the federal government try. I think the intention is there to try to help people. Um, the execution, though, is typically lacking. Um and so you have. You know, it's almost like um, uh, you pop a bunch of balloons at once when they somebody turned 65, and somebody turns 65, and it goes all over the place, and that's kind of how I think it is when people turn 65.
Brian Hickey:If they're not getting, if they don't have the right partners in place, folks like you guys that can help facilitate that discussion and make sure that they're planning ahead of time and planning appropriately. So the big, a couple big mistakes. Number one is this isn't necessarily in this order, but number one would be that comes to mind is not delaying part B when you should and or delaying part B when you shouldn't, and so that takes. That's a very specific situation that is specific to that individual and their long-term goals in terms of when they want to leave the workplace. That's a big piece, and where it matters even more, and when it gets into the weeds, is if you do not. Well, let me flip that.
Brian Hickey:If you elect Part B and you didn't intend to and you have health issues, it could mean down the road that you get declined coverage from the Medicare supplement world. So a little bit about each of those and how you qualify for a Medicare supplement versus a Medicare Advantage the Medicare supplement if you're within six months of your Medicare Part B enrollment. So in my example, let's just say I turned 65 the 15th of August. I went on to a. I am going to retire. I did retire in August. I elected part B and, based off of the conversation with my agent, we decided that a Medicare supplement is the best route for me. Because I'm within that six month window of my part B enrollment, month window of my Part B enrollment. The insurance carrier cannot ask me any health questions. I could be on my deathbed for all intents and purposes and I would still get the coverage and there's nothing that they could do about it. If I wait, inadvertently or purposefully, outside of that six month window, they can underwrite me and they can decline my coverage Okay.
Brian Hickey:That doesn't mean you can't have any coverage. It just means a Medicare supplement for that particular situation. It may be a timeframe Maybe they had stents put in um in in May and it has to be two years. Then the insurance company would say you know, we're not going to. We have to underwrite you. Yes, you have stents, so we're not going to offer you coverage. But come back in two years and we'll take a look at it.
Brian Hickey:On the Medicare Advantage side, one of the big benefits on Medicare Advantage is it doesn't matter what your health is. It doesn't matter your gender, it doesn't matter any of that. If you want a Medicare Advantage, you can get a Medicare Advantage whenever you want I shouldn't say whenever you want. You can get a Medicare Advantage regardless of your current health situation. You can switch back and forth sometimes, but it's going to be dependent in those situations depending on which way you go on your current health status.
Brian Hickey:So delaying part B, either inadvertently or intentionally, is sometimes a big mistake. Taking and we talked about this at the beginning of the podcast taking your friend or neighbor's advice and saying this is absolutely what I have to have. Or the flip side, natalie, is somebody may have had a very bad experience with one Medicare supplement or one Medicare Advantage with one carrier and then it becomes a generalization of the entire plan or product. So I will never get a Medicare Advantage plan because my neighbor had a heck of a time with a particular situation and that may happen right, but overall, if you look at the overall plan, what is it? Actively managing the healthcare on a consistent basis? So I didn't.
Brian Hickey:You know what we'll have sometimes. Is we on the prescription drug plan because it changes every year. Obviously, we know the older we get, the likelihood of us being prescribed a medication goes up, the chances of us continuing to have more prescriptions or trying a prescription and having it removed to try something else. That happens on a fairly consistent basis and each year that plan is going to look different for a particular medication. So we'll have clients that come in with 17 medications and we say, okay for those 17 medications. This is the best plan for you for this year.
Brian Hickey:The following year maybe we reach out a couple of times. We haven't heard from them, so they haven't contacted us. We haven't contacted or we've tried to contact them. Our thought is nothing's changed because we haven't heard anything. The insurance carrier now sends out the annual notice of change. So every year, on Medicare Advantage and prescription drug coverage, you will get an annual notice of change from the insurance carrier in September, october. That says, natalie, here's your current plan and here's what we're changing. So let's say you're on Simvastatin right now, and you have been, and that's a generic, but for that particular carrier Simvastatin is not covered at a generic rate. It's now a preferred brand name. So the cost has changed, has changed. That may in and of itself require you to look at a different plan with a different carrier for that following year.
Brian Hickey:But that consumer either doesn't want to do it, doesn't think about it, and then in January they call us and they say geez, I just went to the pharmacy and it was a $5 copay and now it's a co-insurance of $200. Why? What changed? Well, it's because the plan changed and you didn't change your plan and now you're stuck. So there are some ways to get out of these plans, but for the most part, that's you're stuck in it until the following January 1st of the calendar year and you continue to pay it.
Natalie Picha:And $200 a month is $2,400 a year, that's a significant amount of, you know, pain if you will not. Having stopped and reviewed it all and figured out, okay, what do I have to do with my plan?
Brian Hickey:Yeah, and you know, the other thing, natalie, that comes to mind that I want to make sure that we mention is we get this quite a bit too is I'm 65. And maybe I mentioned this earlier, I'm turning 65. I'm not taking any medications. I don't plan on taking medications. I go to the doctor once a year. My parents both lived into their 90s. I've got longevity in my side. Why would I pay for a Medicare Part D prescription drug plan when I don't need it?
Brian Hickey:Getting on medications increases our health decreases, even if you're super healthy for your age, and insurance is just that. It's for the what, if, the, the when something happens right and chances of you getting on a medication or being diagnosed with something where medication is going to be required is pretty high. So take that same scenario. I turned 65 in August. I chose not to take Part D because of all the reasons already mentioned.
Brian Hickey:It's now February, I get diagnosed and I have a thousand dollar a month prescription that I have to take because of my illness. I now have to pay that out of pocket until December 31st of the following year when I can choose to take another plan. So in that case you know it's I mean and those prescription drug prices. I know you know there's always talk about lowering the prices and everything else, but we have clients every day that are calling us saying how do I get this prescription cost down from you know, $6,000 a month to $60 a month, how? What can we do for that? So those costs are definitely out there.
Brian Hickey:In that insurance aspect of it of paying the $30 a month or $35 a month can really outweigh the out-of-pocket costs that you have to pay down the road. So if you're thinking in the future and planning, it's important to get that part D in place. If you don't, and you decide in February that you do want it, you have to wait and now you have a penalty for every month that you could have had the coverage but didn't, and that penalty never goes away. It's not a huge amount, but it's still a penalty and more that you have to pay, and that's that's bad planning, right? So, um, yeah, so those are. I mean, I could go on for days, yeah.
Natalie Picha:I mean it's there's just so much. There's so much to think about, Um and before, and I and I know that we're we're we're running a bit long today, but there again, this is a deep subject and I think everybody wants a simple answer, like everybody wants a silver bullet, right and the same thing for when we do financial advising or we're building out portfolios. They want a simple answer, and very rarely is there one easy answer for things that are just this complex. Can we talk before we go? I want to make sure we touch on this the 3.8% Medicare tax surcharge and what it looks like, because I get clients all the time that say, well, this is not fair, right, I shouldn't be taxed again on top of everything else just because I saved well, you know, or I, you know, back in the day I was putting my kids through college, I worked a second job like I saved well or I did well, and you know. Now my investments are in place. What? What does it mean that now you have to pay that surcharge?
Brian Hickey:Yeah, well, I think you know. I mean, first of all, I think the and you guys probably share this the adjusted gross income chart and you know filing jointly or filing individually and what that. I just for a second I would also say, when you talk about mistakes or you talk about, you know situations that come up where somebody may not wanna go on Medicare. Sometimes we see at that upper end, so the more you make, the more you pay, right? I mean, that's the general concept. Whether it's part B, as in boy, or part D, as in David, depending on your adjusted gross income and how you file, you're gonna pay more because you earn more, and part of that, the thought process behind that, is to try to continue to keep Medicare and you can add Social Security into that as well try to keep the sustainability and the longevity of those particular programs in place as healthcare costs continue to rise. You can blame the insurance companies and they have the blame and blame the insurance companies and and they have the blame, and the providers have the blame, and hospitals have the blame, and unfortunately, it's us as consumers that end up picking up uh, picking up the slack, and so I don't see, unfortunately I don't see that necessarily changing. Um I that is really one of the only ways that they can continue to provide the benefits.
Brian Hickey:Other than you know, one of the things they're trying to do for the last few years is get away from first dollar coverage, pay a premium and I'm immediately going to be covered at 100% day one, and part and parcel to that is the surcharge and everything else is trying to make sure that these social programs and one of the things that we talk about on a consistent basis is social insurance and how, as a country, can we continue to maintain providing these benefits without additional revenue being generated?
Brian Hickey:And that, as much as we hate it, that's what happens. I think of it now. My son, my oldest, is 24, and he's getting into the stage of obviously paying taxes, saving for retirement, and it's driving him up a wall that he has to pay. He has to pay taxes and he says, you know, he says to a certain extent he doesn't think that Social Security or Medicare are going to be around, so why should I have to pay for it? But people 30 or 40 years ago said the same thing and it's it's continued to sustain and and I think it's it they there's flaws in both programs, but there has to be revenue generated in order to pay for it.
Natalie Picha:Right, and we could literally do another entire conversation around. Is social security and Medicare going to be around one day without a doubt every client um, we can, then we get into the deficits. And now we're talking about the economy before a whole other place yeah um, oh, brian, this has been fabulous.
Natalie Picha:Thank you so much for bringing your expertise um to our show. Uh, I'm, I'm really excited about sharing this with our listeners Before we go. Do you have anything else that? I mean, I feel like we covered so many things, but do you have anything else that you're just burning? You have a burning desire to tell our listeners today.
Brian Hickey:Well, there's two One I know you mentioned in the opening that as part of my bio that when I can sneak away I'm a golfer and a hunter. I am terrible at both, and that may say something about my aiming ability, because both of those require aiming abilities and evidently I'm just bad at both. But more specific, related to this, I would say, if you're interested and you want to talk about so, two things. One we didn't really cover if you are getting ready, so when do I call, when do I talk to people about Medicare? So it used to be three months before, because that's when you were eligible for Medicare. Right, I'm 64 in nine months, so I'm going to pick up the phone and I'm going to figure it out Now.
Brian Hickey:Over the last five years it used to be 64 and a half. Now we're seeing it at 64 of people just contacting us, just saying can you just walk me through it? So I have some idea of what's going on. I know the price may be different, I know the benefits may be a little bit different when I turn 65 in a year, but at least I have an idea and I'm I'm planning and I'm ahead of the game, and so we encourage people to do that. So if you're, if you're listening to this or watching it and you have questions, which I'm sure you do, everybody has a unique situation that that pertains to them. I would say just make sure you call our office and we're happy to help you walk through the decision-making process and answer any questions that we couldn't get to during our session today.
Natalie Picha:Oh, that's awesome and that's a great resource to have For those that are listening. We're going to have some additional information that Brian's sharing with us in the show notes, along with his contact information. If you want to reach out to their firm and just have you know, have that beginning conversation. So, brian, again, just a big thank you. I feel like this is going to be one of those shows that's going to get downloaded over and over and over again for the next few years.
Natalie Picha:So, to our listeners, if you enjoy our podcast, please take a moment to subscribe. Leave us a rating and a review. Share our podcast with your friends and family. You know, like Medicare Back Office and RHP, we're always looking to help more individuals. It's what keeps us going every day. You can also find us on LinkedIn and Facebook for additional content, which includes our Market Minute, where our team shares market and economic insights for each month. And if you have any questions or want to discuss today's subject, please reach out to us through our website at royalharborpartnerscom.
Natalie Picha:Whether you're beginning your financial journey now or you've already taken steps towards your ultimate life goals, we're here to guide you. Experience the difference of working with a firm that empowers your life, a firm that focuses on what matters most you.
Disclaimer:Royal Harbor Partners is a registered investment advisor and the opinions expressed by Royal Harbor Partners on this show are their own. Registration of an investment advisor does not imply a certain level of skill or training. All statements and opinions expressed are based upon information considered reliable, although it should not be relied upon as such. Any statements or opinions are subject to change without notice. Thank you. Situation or objectives and is not intended as recommendations appropriate for any individual. Listeners are encouraged to seek advice from a qualified tax, legal or investment advisor to determine whether any information presented may be suitable for their specific situation. Past performance is not indicative of future performance.
