The Key to Selling Medicare for All to Voters Is Simple

[Grammy23]

16. Mineral Man, my husband and I have been on Medicare for several years.

I confess that before we enrolled and began using it for our health care needs we knew very little about it. I knew my mom had that plus a continuation of her Federal Blue Cross from her days working at the VA. I knew between those two things, she had no co-pays.

Before we retired, my husband and I had our health insurance through my husband's employer and had always had deductibles and co-pays. We were insured by United Health Care and later Cigna. Even when I was diagnosed with breast cancer in 1990, we understood little of how it worked, but eventually figured it out. We understood rather rapidly that had we not had insurance, we would have been bankrupt or saddled with enormous debt. Losing our insurance or being dropped because of my health history was always in the back of our minds. When the ACA passed and pre-existing conditions ceased to be a concern for having insurance, it was a huge weight lifted off of our shoulders.

Now that we are on Medicare, I have had two knee replacements and thanks to Medicare and the AARP supplemental through United Health Care, our cost (beyond premiums) has been almost zero. We had some prescription costs not covered by my drug plan, but even that was not a lot. We pay for our Medicare part B through deductions from our Social Security. The supplemental we pay ourselves that costs $383./month for both of us. So our preminums are not cheap, but part of that is because we chose the most expensive supplemental plan F because it had the most generous coverage. If we had to cut costs, we could drop back to a cheaper plan, but then, our out of pocket costs would rise. So in some ways, the higher priced Plan F has proven to be a more cost effective option for us.

We have a good example of the plan you have outlined. A Medicare plan as the basic health care for all, plus the OPTION to purchase a supplemental to cover more expenses. I think the basic plan needs to cover drugs, vision and dental needs. The idea of having separate policies for drugs, vision and dental is only good for the insurance companies. It bumps up the cost to consumers and means some will not get that coverage and will neglect to get their teeth and eyes checked as they need to do. Those things need to be included in basic health coverage so that a person's whole body is under that umbrella policy. Separating those things out is dumb and is not taking care of critical health needs like teeth or medications needed to treat an illness.

It is not hard to explain a Medicare for All plan that works like Medicare for seniors does currently. Plus, you have a bunch of current enrollees who use this method and are happy with it. We will be happy to share our knowledge with younger people who may have questions and concerns. We have real world experience using our Medicare (plus supplemental insurance in some cases) and know how it has worked for us. If we golden oldies can figure it out, the younger whipper snappers can, too.