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Folks! If you know someone about to start Medicare and shopping for Medigap, share this video! Share some insights from a DIY retiree.

Crazy how much more they advertise Medicare Advantage vs Supplement

ABSOLUTELY RIDICULOUS THAT SENIORS SHOULD BE SUBJECTED TO GOING THROUGH ALL THIS IN ORDER TO FIGURE OUT WHICH PLAN IS BEST

Thanks, Jim. I just started Medicare in April 2024 with Plan N MoO as well. My spouse starts Medicare in April 2025. I've already started getting preliminary Supplement numbers from a broker for when both of us are on Medicare. I should be able to pass underwriting easily so we may go with a company that offers a household discount and a annual payment method discount. We'll be doing our serious shopping in January 2025 -- like you said avoiding the AEP chaos.

But you also have to add a drug plan because the plan doesn't include prescription coverage.

Thanks, Jim! Excellent video!

Flexible Retirement Planner is a good PC app. It does about 60% of what I need and does way more Monte Carlo simulations than new retirement and all from your PC. It's good because it is another utility in the toolbox and it also allows a different perspective. With that said I believe New Retirement is a top notch tool for retirement planning. It doesn't do what betterment and similar budgeting after retirement tools do but I like it.

Entertaining ideas? Kind of like Faux News? Infotainment!

If you're seeing the doctor twice a month I don't think you going to make it to 80

Start with your state’s SHIP office to learn about Medicare rules specific to your state. I found that not all brokers were aware that my state had instituted the birthday rule for supplement plans. Then Check out the National Council on Aging’s standards of excellence for Medicare brokers. After talks with brokers I found through TH-cam, I was much more impressed by - and confident in - one from the NCOA’s list. No matter what, though, I think it’s important to talk to people from multiple companies/organizations.

Random thoughs: Schmidt - sorry, but anyone claiming to be an award-winning author, with absolutely nothing to back that up claim, is instantly disqualified in my mind. He claims almost 300K subscribers, and that also seems fishy but I'd really like to know what his TH-cam income is. I can put on a tie and suit coat and talk into a camera too, but that doesn't make me credible. Others like Whitney that are selling clubs and services, I'm sorry but they lack credibility too. Kuhn says nothing of any value, and says it over and over and over again. There's a virtual flood of this low-value content now, and it won't end well. Anyway, just random thoughts.

BAIT AND SWITCH GETS THEM DEEPER INTO YOUR WALLET THE MORE OPTIONS THEY HAVE😊

Very well done... Thank you ! I know this sounds crazy but the thought of no co-pays and dealing with the damn receptionists is quite inviting too..

Excellent presentation! Your explanations are clearer than the professional Medicare Insurance brokers.

It is correct that all Medicare Advantage plans must cover urgent or emergency care when travelling in the U.S. But some Advantage also plans cover non-urgent/emergency care when travelling. HMO Advantage plans require care to be obtained only from in-network providers, unless an emergency. But PPO Advantage plans will cover care obtained from non-contracted providers, although it will usually involve higher copays, in that situation.

Hey, thanks for the video. I used Boomer Benefits as well for my Plan N supplement. Currently, I have the 50c Part D plan from W. It'll be REAL interesting to see what happens to the premiums and formularies in 2025 considering the Inflation "Reduction" Act and CMS's bowing to pressure from the current administration to mitigate premium increases before the election.

Thanks, Jim. That was a great video. I appreciate your wit and wisdom!

I have Plan N.

I have one question that I can't seem to find the answer to I'm currently working for a large employer and the employer is covering 100% of my medical & dental insurance. I plan on applying for Part A, as I turn 65 on 9/07/24. My question is that if I wait to apply to Part B & D until I retire, Do I still have the window available to me to get guaranteed acceptance into a Part G supplemental plan or will I now need to go thru underwriting to get the Part G supplemental plan since I didn't take it during my initial enrollment period

IRMAA is not my friend 😆

Very nice explanation. Have you found a good way to model living off dividends and interest in taxable account. I can’t seem to get capital gains tax to work out or year end balances to come close to my own spreadsheets.

Thanks for good video. I use NR and other tools such as Portfolio Visualizer, FICalc Morningstar Portfolio Tools and Quicken. All my assets are in Vanguard. So I can view my AA in detail and instantly. I normally use Morningstar for that. OK with regard to NR, I use a trick. Instead of creating an NR account for my Vanguard IRA account, I create 3 “phantom” accounts for Buckets 1, 2 and 3. See Christine Benz Bucket system. Outside of NR, in a 1 page spreadsheet I map my mutual funds to the buckets. The spreadsheet simply adds up the $ totals for each bucket. Then, I manually cut / paste those 3 totals into the NR phantom account totals. Now, I am up to date. The cool thing about this trick is now in NR I can base my withdrawal strategy on Buckets. And control the order of withdrawals such that $ is taken from bucket 1 first, 2 second and 3 last (if ever) . Now, in the long term projection graphs you can see the money flows from buckets, not the account. Very powerful to view it this way, if you are using the bucket approach. Hope this makes sense. You may be doing something very similar, but I thought I would share my trick. Thank you for nice video. Dan

Jim, I do find there is an issue with the Roth conversion tool. I am aggressively converting IRA funds to Roth before I have RMDs and collect social security. The issue I have is that I make my large planned conversion in early January. Unfortunately NR seems to ignore the conversion in the current year and plans a different conversion for this year. If I have already made a conversion and it suggests less, I can’t use the new amount and future amounts are not reliable. I have shared the issue with NR support and hopefully they will come up with a solution.

Great analysis and communication. What do you do about dental, vision, hearing, if anything?

You have much greater flexibility to choose a provider and facility with Medicare and medigap than with an Advantage plan.

My wife and I are happy to be on plan F.

Valuable video and thank you very much.

So very confusing This is very simple just get a Medicare advantage plan at your local hospital is a part of Every single city of any size in the nation has such a thing thing It will be advertised as so That means you’ll have no premiums, but you will have co-pays, but out-of-pocket will be capped at $3000 Just do the math why would you pay $200 a month times 12 months best $2400 because you were worried that you’ll have to come up with $3000 in a given year Think about that for a moment, and if I still worries, you simply save the $200 a month and earn interest on that Come on people I know you can figure this out

So Plan N has medical underwriting every year?.......they could potentially deny re-enrollment?

Most of the baby boomers who had kids had them by accident right about that summer of love and or soon after. I was an Oops child probably like many others, problem is whether or not your parents gave a shit about you or themselves. Result is many of us are uneducated but low or medium or highly skilled and over time technology takes over many of those skills and some of us have to retrain our brains to move on to another direction to make a living. My parents took my money my bonds and even sold many of my belongings to survive again without a worry for our future. It is the baby boomers who are to blame for the mess they left many of their kids behind!

Great job going through what's going on, Jim! Would love to interview you for my YT channel some day! Appreciate your work.

Umm... how does 0.35 bp equal "35 cents on the dollar"?

Very helpful. I am just very afraid of unforseen health down falls and being on Plan N. It would end up costing way more, and they probably would not renew it. Fear of the unknown is really difficult to deal with. You did a really good job at making it all understandable. even better than all the Medicare brokers that have You Tubes and get too deep to understand. Thank you so much.

If you're on plan n can you go to plan g if you need to

Just present the facts. Don't make this political. You have lost all credibility.

Thanks, Jim. This is a 180-degree change from Medicare's statement that risk corridors and premium pricing would need no change for 2025. It avoids people's reactions to large 2025 premium price increases, like the character in the movie Network saying," I am mad as hell, and I am not going to be taking it anymore!"😀

This was very helpful and brought out some things I had not thought of. Still a ways off from Medicare but gathering info now. Charts usually make my head spin, but I could easily follow your clear and logical explanation and conclusion. Thanks!

This was a very comprehensive and informative video that was easy to follow and understand unlike those done by so many underwriters and salesmen on TH-cam that confuse me with too many technicalities.

I kinda skipped when you hit longevity... Did you mentions the no 1 reason to take SS 'early'? YOU NEED THE MONEY. I'm happy you have a private nest egg that can provide for all your needs, $40G a yr for a median worker now a days after taxes, more or less. Few, very very few do so, due to our lousy wages. As to longevity. In short, having more money later may not matter much or at all. We will all end up needing a 'nursing home environment' and the older, the more likely. I'm sure there is a table showing this. Waiting unitl 70 to get more money may not mean much if at 80 you're in a nursing home. It will buy you a slightly better nursing home experience but it won't be a big difference. in detail... Here's something to consider, and having worked in long term care on the facilities side only, so not in the trenches, here's a fact. At some point, you'll need long term care unless you have saved up enough to hire someone to take care of you at home, PT then FT. So again for the VAST MAJORITY you will be going into a nursing home some day. If you have vast savings you can pay yearly for a really nice one, if not, you'll need to find the best that will just take all your SS money, what's left of your savings. Best meaning you'll have the best experience there. Some SS only can be pretty dreadful, and SS only isn't likely to be a lot of fun. However there is good news. When you need such care, you may not 'need' such enjoyable an experience. Ekkk yes we deteriorate in all ways, all too many of us. What seems NOW to be a depressing future might well at the time, not be so depressing. If you can still appreciate how you need the care provided and had no other way to get it, you might even be happier there than whatever the alt was. Depressing, yeah, all this is. Sigh.

The new generations will have to live there lives as if in the 1930's and hope the economy will improve within the next 50 years of there lives but that may require world war 3 are we in a position both defensively and offensively for another world war. Maybe Elon has some smart answer for you there...I don't know

Plan F was going up $10-20 a month each year I had it. The Florida Blue agent said it kept going up because they were trying to ween people off Plan F, so he moved me to Plan G even though I am not guaranteed that the premium won't go up enough to make it cost as much as Plan F and I will still have to pay the $235 deductible each year. My Florida Blue premium on Plan G is $215/month

Exactly what I was looking for. Excellent job!

I manage my own retirement. I have IRAs and an old 401k. My fidelity account gives me a “free” advisor. She is very good. She does not try to push products on me because she knows I’m an educated investor. You need to know the products that you own. Many advisor charge 1% or more and put people into expensive mutual funds with high fees. My 401k currently is invested in VIIIX which has a low expenses .02% expense ratio. My advice is to educate yourself. Financial literacy is very low in this country and people get drawn into investments with high fees.

The retirement calculators online, and there are many, are informative and can give you peace of mind. It’s great to know you won’t run out of money even if you live a long time. Of course, dementia care could wreak havoc on this.

Imagine if you could make your money grow by over 30% every week. Sounds awesome, right? That's what we can do with our fund management service. If you want to see your money working hard for you, join us and let’s make it happen together!

You no longer can take yours then switch to spouce. They stopped that in 2023 (i think that was the year)

Appreciate the confirmation of my decision. I started on Medicare two months ago and signed up for plan n due to the cost difference. I pay $141 for plan n, plan g was $210. I live in Florida and I get most of my medical care from the Indian health service at no cost to me.

Are these the amounts of premiums on top of the Medicare B? Or are they replacing B premiums?

I never used that tool, but I rolled over my TIAA 403(b) accounts to Vanguard IRAs as soon as I retired. TIAA was too expensive. I used both TIAA and independent advisors while I was with TIAA. I did not have any problem with the TIAA advisors. I am now running a DIY retirement with New Retirement software's help and advice from excellent TH-camrs like I was Retired!

Drawing down your deferred savings,401k or Ira ,in smaller amounts over a longer period time is a great strategy all day long. Since income taxes and Medicare premiums are based on income , it makes sense to draw less per year over a longer period of time. Waiting to draw later in retirement only increases your required minimum distribution ,bumping you into a higher tax bracket and higher Medicare premium bracket when you turn 73