Medigap plan insurers discovered jacking up premiums on Plan F policies faster than Plan G, forcing higher costs on millions of Medicare beneficiaries.
Throughout the 2021 Medicare open enrollment season, the folks at MedicareWire.com collected Medigap premium information on all of their clients who requested a free quote. Not surprisingly, they found a financial value gap between Medigap Plan F policies and Plan G, but why?
You'll find MedicareWire's Plan F vs Plan G information on this MedicareWire page.
Medicare supplement Plan F (also known as Medigap Plan F), has long been the gold standard in the Medicare insurance industry. However, after comparing quotes for more than 1,000 Medicare beneficiaries during the 2021 Annual Election Period (AEP), the report authors discovered a significant cost gap between Plan F and Plan G. If you have a Plan F policy, you'll be interested in what they discovered.
The premiums on Plan F policies, which are no longer available to people qualifying for Medicare as of 1 January 2020, are increasing faster than the combined cost of Plan G policies and the annual Medicare Part B deductible. There's really no reason for this because it's just a simple cost and the carriers profit on it by the tens-of-thousand of people who never use their health care benefits during a calendar year.
The only difference between a Plan F and Plan G policy is the Medicare Part B deductible, which, for 2021 has been set at $203 per year by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). According to congress.gov, starting in 2020, Medicare Supplement plans that pay the Medicare Part B deductible will no longer be sold to those newly eligible. This change is part of the Medicare Access and CHIP Reauthorization Act of 2015 (MACRA).
Congress did away with Medicare Part B deductible coverage in Medicare supplements as a means to stop frivolous doctor visits. Now it looks like Medicare supplement insurance carriers are following Congress's lead by hiking their premiums on Plan F policies faster than Plan G policies.
The MedicareWire report claims that in all cases examined, the annualized cost of a Medicare Supplement Plan G policy, plus the annual Medicare Part B deductible, was less than the annualized Plan F policy for the same beneficiary. In some instances, the cost variance was over $200 per year.
Two-hundred dollars is a lot of money to simply write a check. The folks at MedicareWire say they wish everyone in a Plan F policy right now would check what they are paying with current Plan G premiums. A lot of people are tossing good money out the window with a Medigap Plan F policy.
MedicareWire, which is not a health insurance agency or broker, offers a free Medicare supplement rate comparison service to help people find the best rates without having to divulge their personal information.
