PSA - If you enroll in Medicare Advantage, you could be stuck for life

[yonder]

80. Yes, it was a tough road to negotiate for me too.

I went with Medicare, a supplemental plan (Medigap) and a low-cost dental/vision plan as did my wife when she became eligible. We are so glad we made that choice and have not regretted it.

Consider all the MA adverts pushed at you and ask yourself how can they afford that. They claim 0 this and free that which may be true as they reel us gomers in, but just wait until they can squeeze the life out of traditional Medicare. Remember 40-50 years ago when the insurance industry started pushing "Managed Health Care"? The next best thing since sliced bread right? All we had to do was let them place themselves between us and our doctors, let them negotiate on our behalf and everything will become cheaper, easier, pain-free, etc. How did that work out?

From memory, administrative costs for MA average 30-40% while Medicare are somewhere around 5%. There's a reason for that.

Your state may offer a free of charge, state-run program which can guide you in this unnecessarily complicated but necessary decision. If nothing else, take the excellent advice in post #59. Begin with traditional Medicare/Medicare. You can easily move to a MA plan. But not the other way around.

Good luck