Mediscare: Everything You Wanted To Know About Medicare But Were Afraid To Ask

By Robert Carranza

A heuristic novella about Medicare for people turning age 65

• Language: English
• Publisher: Robert Carranza
• Release date: Dec 10, 2015
• ISBN: 9781310796913

Robert Carranza

Writer and agent

Book preview

Chapter 1

Should I go?

When he opened the letter Erasmus was sitting at his kitchen table sorting through a pile of mail. He had been gone about a week. This letter began with a congratulatory remark about turning age 65. Erasmus had attached no special significance to his 65 birthday, about six months away; so when he came upon the word Medicare, he did not immediately make the connection. He knew very little about Medicare, but what he did know he had learned from friends already on it. Most of what he heard he dismissed as just talk. None of his friends ever said much about it, except for a few derisive remarks like it was going out of business or the government should keep its mitts off Medicare. The only thing he felt certain about was that it was a government medical insurance program for the elderly. Or was that Medicaid? The names sound too much alike, he thought. I guess they want some kind of formal acknowledgment that I’ve been taking advantage of senior discounts. AARP must have ratted on me, he chuckled. No matter. He kept reading because the letter’s opening statements intrigued him:

When you were a little boy and pleaded with your mother, Ah, Ma, Do I have to! She may have said, Well, how are you going to learn your ABCs? Now approaching age 65, you have come full circle and it’s time to learn about the A, B, and C of Medicare.

The letter’s upbeat tone informed him that he had medical benefits due him upon turning 65. These benefits would help pay for any future medical bills for the rest of his life, as well as any prescriptions he might take. The benefits were rightfully his, the letter repeatedly stated, and they would cost him a little more than a hundred dollars in monthly premiums. This got Erasmus thinking: The savings from my present health plan would be rather large. Or will I still need to keep both coverages? He wondered about his wife—was she also eligible? So he poured himself another cup of Churupampa dark roast and continued reading about the history of Medicare, which he learned was started by President Lyndon Baines Johnson. Harry Truman was the first Medicare beneficiary and nearly 20 million others followed him its inaugural year. Yeah, Erasmus thought. When ‘Give ’em hell’ Harry learned he had heart disease, he probably gave the first Medicare doctor hell. And from that time, Medicare doctors have been like an endangered species, or so I’ve heard. Oh well.

Erasmus was not one to give anyone a hard time, being mild mannered and not prone to getting upset or excited about anything contained in a letter. From where he was sitting next to a large window with a view of his expansive backyard, he glanced up from the letter to see a squirrel stuffing his face with pecan nuts. There were many nuts all around him. It was the season. Erasmus thought the squirrel’s dilemma was interesting, but not as much as his own. Reading further down the letter, he learned that his medical benefits were divided up into two categories. The part that dealt with treatments in a hospital was called Medicare Part A; the part having to do with care performed at a doctor’s office was called Medicare Part B. The letter apologized for the alphabet soup of letters associated with Medicare, then added: Medicare uses the word Part before its core benefits, as in Part A, Part B, Part C, and Part D. When a letter is preceded by the word Plan, it is referencing supplemental benefits to original Medicare. So Plan A refers to a type of Medicare supplement or Medigap plan, two words for the same type of insurance. Okay, he thought. So Medicare has many moving parts. This could get complicated. It got him thinking about all the things he’s heard about Medicare and wondered which of them were really true. The mention of Medigap plans was one thing he knew nothing about. So they were part of that alphabet soup. Did he have to take it? He wondered if enrolling in Medicare also meant he’d be signing up for Social Security. He knew of someone who said that it did. They took money out of his Social Security check, the friend had said. Maybe that’s why he said you have to have Social Security before enrolling in Medicare. Perhaps, he thought. It’s gonna get paid somehow.

But Erasmus was still working and not planning to retire for at least a couple of years. He was an engineer at a small firm and liked his job. Do I even need Medicare, he wondered. He recalled another friend, really a frienemy; a bumptious and rather impetuous fellow, who once stormed into a Social Security office intending to refuse to take Medicare. But after cooling his heels for about five hours (having ticket #984), he said he calmed down, or maybe just fell asleep. He said he had thought, or maybe dreamed?, that Medicare would reduce his Social Security benefits. Not so, he was informed. Being also a bloviater, the frienemy circuitously explained that he could pay for his Part B premium with automatic withdrawals from his Social Security benefits. I never quite understood what his gripe was all about, Erasmus thought. Did he say you get full Social Security benefits automatically when you enroll in Medicare? Umm, … The enemy of my frienemy is like an enema to me … Umm, haven’t seen that guy in awhile; maybe he’s no longer around.

Does enrolling in Medicare mean necessarily getting A and B? And what about C and D? Or, X, Y, and Z, he said to himself playfully. This Medicare stuff better not get too complicated or somebody’s gonna add a few choice characters — *%&!— to the discussion. Erasmus perused the rest of the two-page letter to see if some of his questions might find an answer. So Medicare has a trust fund, he learned, which he has been paying into all his working life. You don’t say, he pouted. And that’s why he no longer had to pay into the trust fund in order to get Part A benefits. That hospitalization benefit. You don’t say, he said softly to himself. He pressed his lips tightly while thinking: Why didn’t they do that same thing for B? That would have been cool. It had to do with the way Medicare was structured in order to get the national health insurance legislation passed by Congress on July 30, 1965, he read. The hybrid design of Medicare was the brainchild of some Democrat named Wilbur Mills. The initial legislation did not include physicians’ services, and once included, they were allowed to set their own rates. Oh yeah, Medicare has always been political.

It was about a quarter to nine in the morning on a Saturday and Erasmus wanted to blow through his pile of