i thought that one of the ways to get real answers to real questions is to simply go through some
of the emails that i get on a pretty much daily basis so people sending me emails with questions
that they need help with on how to start medicare or what to do in certain situations and it can run
a gamut of different things so i thought it'd be a great way to give insight into what other people
are going through and really answer a whole bunch of questions i'm keith armbr founder of medicare
on video i help people across the country make the right medicare choices i can absolutely help you
as well and if you stay to the end i'll show you how to download my free book medicare made clear
got a lot of information in it everything that you need for medicare now and in the future so
we're gonna go through an email right now that i just got recently and i'll do this on a regular
basis so if you find it interesting certainly subscribe to the channel that way you'll get
notifications and maybe that email question will be the exact same question that you're
facing so we're gonna go right now to one that i got recently that came from bob and bob says
i've been watching your medicare related videos and they are great so bob's off to a great start
that makes it easy for me to answer his questions it never hurts to suck up just a little bit
my situation is i'm still working and would like to continue for a company with over 20 employees
already he knows that that makes a difference over 20 or under 20 so he's been watching some videos
i have just entered my medicare enrollment window 65 years minus three months so he's three months
ahead of where he's going to turn 65 again perfect he's right on time and i see that apparently the
best course right now is for me to sign up for medicare part a stay on my employer's health
insurance until i decide to retire and then start part b application process now that for a lot of
people is absolutely the exact way to go there's some issues with signing up for part a if you're
going to keep working i'll talk about that in a minute but that is generally what you would do
he goes on to say the problem is my employer's insurance sucks with united health care so he's
got a not good insurance plan at work they dropped my primary care physician during the pandemic
yes during the pandemic and not wanting to find a new doctor during the pandemic
he pays out of pocket so he keeps going to the same doctor even though it's not on the plan
you know this paraphrases right here one of the main issues that i have with medicare advantage
it functions the same way as this where a doctor your doctor can be in the plan one day the next
day they're no longer in the plan and it's absolutely complicated the older you get so uh
so he still goes and he pays out of pocket which is ridiculous so he has insurance but he doesn't
use his insurance because it's not working for him as as an aside my dentist dropped my
health insurance because they hardly pay anything now dental's probably on a separate policy but
yes same thing with a dentist he can be in and then he cannot be in so complicated to
work so except for my prescriptions my current insurance is essentially worthless unless i go
to the hospital so bob's got a little different situation than a lot of people but maybe not from
many people so finally to my question number one is it possible for me to remain employed number
two drop my current employer-based insurance number three get fully insured by medicare part
a part b whatever else i may need so big you know i can answer his first question pretty easily yes
you can stay employed let's talk about the rest of it and exactly how it works with medicare
and when you're on employer coverage and if you're going to work past age 65 and certainly a lot of
people probably the majority of people work past age 65 now so it's important to understand how
to function your medicare with your work coverage so now we're talking employer greater than 20 so
employer insurance is the primary coverage if you had an employer that's less than 20 then medicare
is the primary you're going to want to come off of that no matter what and go into medicare if
you work for somebody that has fewer than 20 employees but here we have bob working at this
larger employer with not good insurance so most of the time if you work for a large company let's say
you work for the government if you work for the government chances are they're going to be paying
if not 100 of your premium for your health insurance certainly most of it and they'll
probably have a pretty good plan if that's the case you you're going to want to stay on that
health insurance until you're ready to retire now back to the part a scenario where part a
there's no cost to it it used to be that part a would start automatically but now you have to
elect part a so why would you not want to elect part a number one it doesn't really do anything
so it doesn't coordinate benefits or anything so it doesn't have any value there but what it
does do is it prohibits you from contributing to a health savings account so if you're a
large employer you probably have a health savings account where you contribute money
it's tax-free money when you contribute it so there's no taxes coming out so it's a great
benefit you want to do that when you can but for whatever reason medicare says once you start
medicare and not only once you start that six months prior to when you start you have to stop
contributing to a health savings account so it's it's a it's an important thing to understand
it certainly gets messed up all the time i've tried to find the ramifications for it and i
i've been unsuccessful but there are definitely penalties on the tax side so you want to make sure
that you do what you're supposed to do so that aside you know your part a is an issue now
part b if you're going to stay on your employer's coverage you do not want to start part b
because it will take away your trigger later so your part b has a monthly premium it's about
170 a month right now and if you start it when you're still working at age 65
and you work for three years or four years when you do come into medicare you're not going to have
freedom of choice because your part b is that trigger later so if you're working past age 65
you do not want to start your part b you want to start your part b when you retire whether it's 67
77 doesn't make any difference when you retire let's say you retired 77 you start your part b
just like you turn 65 so you have freedom of choice you can pick any
plan that you want there's no medical questions but if you started early number one you're gonna
pay for it that entire time where it'll have absolutely no benefit and number two it takes away
those triggers as you go so yes if you are at work and you have a good employer contribution they pay
most of your premium they have a good health insurance plan you want to stay on that plan
you probably don't want to start a you probably don't you definitely don't want to start part b
so there's really nothing to do until you retire if you are working for that large employer and
like bob you have a crappy insurance plan and maybe they are only paying 50 of your premium
so it's still expensive for you you probably do want to come off the plan so if you want to
come off the plan really not hard there are some scenarios with large employers where they will
have an annual enrollment period meaning you have to be on that plan until january 1 that's when
you can make changes or sometimes it's fiscal year november 1 where that's when you can make changes
but for the most part keep in mind that employer when you're turning 65 they really don't want you
on their health insurance because you're a higher risk than the younger employees so they would much
prefer that you go into medicare so talk to hr number one find out can i get off easily you know
can we set it up for the first of the month of my 65th birthday month so if you turn 65 june 15th
stuff's going to start on june 1st so you need to end your employer coverage on june 1st and then
start medicare a medicare b it's pretty easy to do and i created a link to get you to the page on
social security that's where you sign up at social security if you simply go to www.startpartb.com
takes you right to that page and then it's pretty much just fill in the blanks so you'll start it
on the first of the month that you turn age 65 and stop your current group insurance that same day
and that's about it so hopefully if you're in that situation you found this helpful and you
know subscribe to my channel for future emails that we respond to and hopefully i'll give a
clear picture for everybody you know when they're coming in medicare or even if you're already into
medicare i'll have some questions there as well so hope you found this helpful stay tuned i'll show
you how to download my book have a fantastic day thank you for taking the time to watch my video i
hope you found it very helpful here are a couple other things that you'll also find helpful as you
go through medicare the first one is a copy of my book medicare made clear you can download it right
now for free i've put a lot of time and effort into this book and you'll see i covered just about
every piece of medicare and i've written it in a way that makes it pretty easy to understand now i
also have videos throughout the book so if you don't want to read through all the information
click on the video and i'll explain it all to you right there you'll also find all the links that
you need to either sign up for medicare or things that you're going to need now
or in the future when things come up related to medicare so take just a minute
go to medicare medicareonvideo.com forward slash free book and you can download it right now
now also make sure once you're in medicare that every year you come back and visit medicare price
check this is my other website where i make it super easy for us to compare our current coverage
against new plans that may be less expensive and remember that medicare supplements
are standardized so it doesn't matter which insurance company we use we'll still have
the same plan g or the plan n that we have now but hopefully we can get it at a lower price
so visit medicarepricecheck.com real easy we'll email you the quote if it makes sense then
we'll do it from there so hope you found all this helpful have a fantastic day hey don't go anywhere
these are some of my most recent videos right here you can also find the link right below this video
to download my book medicare made clear absolutely free you can also subscribe to my channel
right here so please download my book watch some videos subscribe to the channel have a great day