Question by Kat: Is there any way to totally opt out of Medicare if disabled?
I have always had private health insurance and though I don’t mind paying into Medicare for people who want or need it, I do not want any part of the program. According to the Social Security website, “We automatically enroll you in Medicare after you get disability benefits for two years. The two parts of Medicare we enroll you in are hospital insurance and medical insurance. ”
I don’t need or want these. Is there a way out of it? Can I “opt out” of the SSDI if it requires being involved with Medicare, even though I worked and paid in to Social Security for many years?
I currently have private insurance through my husband’s employer. They notified us that since some of the Obamacare legislation has come online, Medicare is now considered the primary insurance and any other policies are pushed to secondary. This limits what physicians can be seen (those who accept Medicare) as well as how much will be paid to the provider.
I would rather just give up ALL medications and “health care” and die off naturally than give my health freedoms over to some stupid government regulation.
I currently have private insurance through my husband’s employer. They notified us that since some of the Obamacare legislation has come online, Medicare is now considered the primary insurance and any other policies are pushed to secondary. This limits what physicians can be seen (those who accept Medicare) as well as how much will be paid to the provider.
I would rather just give up ALL medications and “health care” and die off naturally than give my health freedoms over to some stupid government regulation.
Know better? Leave your own answer in the comments!
Medicare is not mandatory but most people want it. Yes you can choose not to take it if you are under 65, you have to disenroll in writing to the Social Security office. There is a form to complete. If you dont need Medicare, I am glad to see you give it up. Here is a link that may be of help. If it is not, look up the Medicare site or call Social Security or Medicare for the forms.
you can opt out of part B which is office visits. And not get part D (prescriptions)
Part A is hospitalization….
You can tell them you are no longer severely disabled and unable to work and therefore no longer eligible for benefits…..and they should let you out of it once they investigate and prove you are sane.
Use it in a way you probably don’t know you can use it. I have my own insurance too, because Medicare doesn’t cover enough. Social Security gives that monthly amount as payment to my insurance company and I pay the rest. It costs me $ 172 a month. It would cost me about $ 270 a month, if Social Security didn’t send what they automatically take out anyway. Talk to your insurance company, and they’ll tell you how that works. For all you know, you can probably get a better plan than you have now from them, through them taking that money Social Security pays out for Medicare straight from your check before you see it.
At worse, you can do what my husband does. He still gets that money taken out, but he uses the VA, instead of getting additional insurance. The way he works it is, if the VA can’t see him for months (which they usually can’t), but he needs to see a doctor immediately, instead of going to the VA hospital’s ER and waiting on average 8 hours, he goes to my doctor (who used to be his doctor too, before he became disabled.) It costs a lot more to see the doctor that way, but a lot less if he was paying straight from his pocket, because some of it is paid through Medicare.
I get you don’t need or want it now, but it’s better to leave things as they are now, in case, some day, you might need it.
My dad has a pension insurance plan, when he retired. Then he became eligible for Social Security retirement and never did anything with Medicare either. Mow he’s in his 80s with dementia, arthritis, and high blood pressure. The dementia is only going to get worse, so Medicare is a backup to a backup to a backup. (He doesn’t need Social Security either.) You’re fine now, but no one gets out of life alive. May you grow so old that you don’t mind the little extra padding on your health insurance needs.
If you don’t want it all you have to do is call 1-800-773-1213 – there is a form you have to sign.
However, you might want to contact your private insurance first. If you are not working and I am assuming you aren’t, it is possible that Medicare will be your primary insurer. If that is the case then your private insurance won’t cover what Medicare would have paid for whether you take Medicare or not. In other words if you have a $ 5000 bill and Medicare would have paid $ 3000 of it – an insurance carrier which would have been secondary won’t pay the $ 3000.
If, however, you have private insurance through a husband who is working then your private insurance remains primary. People who have both Medicare and a private insurance end up not having to pay any medical costs because what isn’t paid for by one is paid for by the other.
If you opt out of Part B (Part A – Hospital is free) you can only enroll in the general enrollment period which is Jan – March of each year and coverage is effective the following July at a higher premium (10% higher for every year you could have had the coverage but didn’t).
Is it going to cost you anything? No. So what is your problem?
I’m guessing you are from the USA, the most expensive place in the world to get sick. Take what you can get.