Medicare enrollment is mandated, what’s the big deal?
21 May
Today many Americans are obsessed with the mandate under the Affordable Care Act to carry health insurance. However, there are forty-five million or so Americans who should see it as no big deal. The penalty for not enrolling in health insurance is insignificant when compared with the penalty that seniors who want to drop out of Medicare face. That penalty is loss of ones Social Security benefit. Yikes, that hurts.
But the issue is moot because the law prevents anyone from selling insurance to replace Medicare. So, unless you are super wealthy or just dumb, it is unlikely you want to drop Medicare anyway.
The rule causing loss of Social Security was promulgated in 1993 under Clinton administration … did you ever hear of it?
There are other mandates too. If you are 65 and still working with health insurance, your employer plan (more than 20 employees) is mandated as primary over Medicare. In others words, you don’t use Medicare until you actually stop working. The benefit to the seasoned citizens is they don’t need to enroll in Medicare Part B while working and suffer no penalty for late enrollment when they enroll after stopping work.
Does the phrase “much ado about nothing” ring a bell? It seems the mandate to carry health insurance left the station long ago. Lets worry more about the cost and quality of health care, I sure do.
You information about Medicare is a tad misleading. Medicare is secondary to group health plans is the employer has 20 or more employees. If the group is made up of fewer than 20 employees, Medicare is primary and the group plan only acts as a supplement. A person in a large group who leaves Medicare would only suffer a minor wound compared to a person in a small group who left Medicare. They would suffer a mortal wound.
Simple facts. Just like we blame the midle man from gas staions to health insurance. Whe should point the finger at the person who dicates the cost like Docters and hospitals.