Now is the time to sign up for Medicare plans. For seniors and other eligible people, the most important thing to do is to look over their coverage, compare their options, and make a plan for their health care in 2025.
People over the age of 65 and younger people with disabilities or serious illnesses can get health insurance through this federal program.
These groups of people are some of the most vulnerable and need the most help with health care, so the best thing they can do for their health is to carefully consider their options.
How do Medicare beneficiaries use Medicare?
- Part A helps cover hospital care, skilled nursing facility care, hospice care, and home health care.
- Part B helps cover services from doctors and other health care providers, outpatient care, home health care, durable medical equipment (such as wheelchairs, walkers, hospital beds, and other equipment), and many preventive services (such as screenings, shots or vaccinations, and annual “wellness” visits).
- Part D helps cover the cost of prescription drugs (including many recommended shots or vaccines). You can join a Medicare drug plan in addition to Original Medicare, or you can get it by joining a Medicare Advantage plan with drug coverage.
- Part C, better known as Medicare Advantage, is a plan approved by a private company that offers an alternative to Original Medicare Parts A and B for your medical and drug coverage. These “bundled” plans include Part A, Part B and, usually, Part D.
How will the Part D changes affect insurers and beneficiaries?
Some changes have been made to Part D to keep premiums from going up too much in 2025. For example, the cost of covered prescription drugs has been limited to $2,000 a year.
However, these changes have made it hard for the private sector to figure out how much the service they will provide will cost. As a result, the enrollment period for Medicare Part D has started without a clear price list for the first time since 2006.
There is an even bigger problem for some seniors, though. Some insurance companies have decided that the changes to Medicare will cost them too much and have either pulled out of some markets or made their presence much smaller.
Because of this, a lot of Medicare recipients have no choices for Parts C or D and can only get public Medicare coverage, which does not usually cover things like eye or dental care.
Because of this, the remaining insurers are more likely to raise prices, both to cover costs and because customers do not have many other options.
This has led the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), the federal agency in charge of Medicare, Medicaid, and the Children’s Health Insurance Program, to limit price hikes to $35 per year.
That is why the Part D base premium is likely to go up to $36.78 in 2025, which is $2.08 more than in 2024 and a rise of up to 6%.
Even though this increase does not seem like much, it could make things harder for seniors and disabled people who depend on fixed incomes.