Medicare versus Obamacare versus Other Insurance…Know Your Options!

A recent news article (Waters, Jennifer. "Don’t Confuse Medicare with Obamacare." Wall Street Journal 7 Sept. 2013) cautioned readers not to confuse the annual Medicare open enrollment period (aka “open season”) with the upcoming Affordable Care Act Marketplace enrollment period.  Since the two programs will have overlapping enrollment periods during the last quarter of the year, there is bound to be confusion, if not “opportunistic hustlers” looking to exploit unsuspecting enrollees.  As Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) spokesman – Richard Olague – indicated in the article – “We want to reassure Medicare beneficiaries that they are already covered, that their benefits aren’t changing and that the Marketplace doesn’t require them to do anything different.  Specifically, they do not have to change their Medicare coverage or enroll in any Marketplace plan.”  Just what Medicare beneficiaries didn't need - more confusion!

This article got me thinking about other aspects of Medicare that confuse, confound, and challenge both program beneficiaries, and employers/human resource managers alike.  As an Employee Benefits Broker/Consultant, I answer a lot of questions relating to Medicare and its impact on employer sponsored/offered health insurance.  So this week’s post is dedicated to clarifying, and perhaps informing, on some key aspects of the transecting of Medicare (and its various parts) and employer sponsored health insurance.

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