1) Question: If I have a Medicare Supplement Plan F with one insurance company and want to switch to another insurance company’s Plan F that is cheaper will my coverage be the same?Answer: Yes. By law, if an insurance provider is going to offer Medicare Supplement policies (whether it be plan F, G, N, or otherwise) they must do so according to the outlines of coverage drafted by the federal government. Therefore a plan F from one insurance provider offers the exact same coverage and protection from any other insurance provider offering plan F as well.

2) Question: If insurance companies are required to offer the exact same coverage on identical Medicare Supplement plans, how come their prices on that same coverage can vary so much from one insurance company to another?Answer: It’s because Medicare Supplement insurance is essentially group coverage, and when members of a particular group get sick and incur lots of medical expense everyone in the group bears the brunt. Therefore if the company you have your Plan F with gets too expensive because the people who are in that plan with you are incurring exorbitant medical expenses you may have an opportunity to save a significant amount of money by switching to a company who has a healthier group of people in their Plan F.

3) Question: What effect will the Affordable Care Act (aka ‘Obamacare’) have on Medicare recipients?Answer: The good news for traditional Medicare recipients is that it will have no effect until at least 2029 due to a recent 12-year extension of the Medicare Trust fund. However the proposed $200 billion cut that Obamacare is taking out of the Medicare Advantage (MA) program is already being felt around the country as access to doctors becomes more limited and out-of-pocket payments increase for that program.