ok, this thread is once again active! "Not so sure about the "unsual" I had cataract surgery and had two in one eye.!! Dr had never seen that before. When the other eye developed the expected cataract there were 3. They took photos and documented the removal but no write up in JAMA .That I'm aware of . He did give me a 3 for one price break though lol. gary" Gary, If you were 'normal', you wouldn't need eye surgery. Whatever your surgeon finds under a microscopic view is a 'bonus' . Be grateful that you weren't "written-up" ! I had cataract surgeries done at age 54. After the second one was completed, the surgeon remarked that the odds of my dual responses were 1:10,000. As far as she was concerned, a once in a career event. She was excited. I didn't give a s*#t She didn't give me any discounts. IF she had given me a discount, I might have been excited except that the surgeries were covered 100% by my insurance plans. No complaints. --Stitz--

We also went with Plan F...and the Part D for prescriptions. Then BC/BS for supplemental. Yes, there are cheaper plans than "F" but, once you choose a plan, you can't buy "up" if you need more...you can buy "down" to the cheaper plans, but you can't buy up...So...I feel the best way to go in Plan "F"...Part "D" and BC/BS. That sort of puts it in a nutshell. If you don't take the Part D when you go on medicare, you are penalized something like a percent a month for not having it. Then, if you have a need for it later, it is cost prohibitive. We thought the Part D was mainly to protect lower income people, but have been pleased with the savings it has provided with our medications.

chisue, understand the lesser of two evils. They use prednisone for my disease too. Thankfully, I've never been bad enough to have to use it on a daily basis. I'm allergic to one of the main drugs to treat my disease so if my current drugs really stops working I will have no choice but to take those awful , dangerous and expensive drugs. Hopefully it will never come to that. I have one older brother that did not move to the States when my family moved and so I've really been thinking about how much easier it was for him to retire in Canada. No jumping through all these hoops to figure out how to get his health care needs covered. Emma, what I understand is that they don't have to insure you if you have had a gap in insurance and are outside the 6 month open enrollment. Our situation was a little confusing to these insurers because our medicare part A automatically kicked in at 65 and our B took effect two years later when my husband turned 67. So they carelessly were just looking at the date part A kicked in and assumed we'd had a two year gap in coverage. Some asked if we'd been on cobra. They were asking for proof of insurance until I reminded them that medicare B was just starting and we were within the 6 month open enrollment. The drug plan still said that if I had not been covered they would have raised my premium.Not sure if that is legal under the 6 month open enrollment, but I didn't research it anymore sine it didn't apply to me. In my case, if I went without and then ended up going on one of those $3000 a month drugs and then decided at that time to get part D, no one would be too excited to insure me . And you can bet if one of my drugs was $3000 a month and they agreed to insure me, my premium would be pretty hefty. Our total costs for the two of us are around $480 a month United(AARP) is $116.78 for me, $121.94 for my husband. It is community based which means they can't raise your premium just because you are a year older. It goes up according to your zip code. In my state there were only two options for community based or issue age --the two that can't be raised because you are a year older. All the others were attained age which will go up for each year older you get. Then medicare B is $99.90 for each of us. I'm paying $27 for my part D and my husband picked the cheapest for 15 a month. I didn't figure it was as important to get the perfect plan with drug because it apparently is easy to change at the end of the year if what you picked didn't work out so well. It just seemed to me that there was a real learning curve to getting this all arranged. Dedtired, I'm confused why you would be paying 300 a month for medicare part B or something else?? something doesn't sound right.

Gosh, I hate this whole procedure. I'm also seeing that medicare supplements are hugely more expensive for 2016. We've had Plan F high deductible in 2014 and 2015, paying under $100/month. Looks like more than DOUBLE for the same coverage next year -- and very little difference in premiums between high deductible and the comprehensive straight Plan F. I'm wondering if we will even GET a supplemental plan next year. I have yet to meet the deductible ($2800) after my hospital stay for pneumonia. (Medicare paid almost everything.) I'd have been better off not paying premiums! We have to do Part D (drug plan). Fun and games running the numbers of who will charge you less for any maintenance meds -- two for DH and one for me (Adviar, at $300/mo. retail). This is a cockamamie system we have in the US.