u/Methos1979

TL;DR: Disabled veteran currently using VA for all my healthcare and turning 65 later this year thinking of going with a medicare advantage plan vs. VA only or VA & regular medicare as a way to stave off possible penalties down the road if I need or want to go back on regular medicare.

Detailed explanation: Like many, I'm currently navigating the complexities of medicare as I turn 65 in September. I'm a bit different most in that I get all my healthcare currently through the VA. I'm a level 3, 10% disabled vet which means that everything related to that is covered 100%. Despite that I've never been charged for anything I've had done at the VA other than prescription copays including surgeries, MRI's and ER visits outside the VA. Because I'm in a small, low population state my VA care has been excellent without any of the excessive wait times and horror stories you hear about from much larger and busier VA facilities.

As I understand it, if you have VA care and you are happy with it you technically don't need any other healthcare. BUT (and it's a huge but) since you never know when VA care might change for the worse, everyone - including the VA - highly recommend that you get as much additional insurance coverage as you can. This makes sense especially if you travel a lot, might move in the future or might want a second opinion from a specialty outside of the VA. So my choices are fairly simple and straightforward: Go with VA and refuse Medicare, add basic medicare B (and maybe D) or add a medicare advantage (MA) plan.

In the last several months I've spent a ton of time researching here on reddit as well as attending local SHIP seminars and MA broker presentations and I think I've got a pretty good handle on my options and the pro's and con's of each. I'm still relatively healthy and very active. I have only a few, non-serious age-related issues and am on no prescriptions. At this point I'm leaning towards going with adding a MA plan to my VA. Here's my reason why: Since I'm using VA for everything and getting charged nothing I really don't need anything else - yet. But as we all know, that can and surely will eventually change quickly.

If I went with just VA I'd be gambling that at some point I could lose that care or at least have it reduced. Or, I might need more care than the VA can give. If I refuse medicare and then need it down the road the penalties would be significant because VA care is NOT consider 'credible coverage' like an employer plan. Going with even plain medicare B and D would set me back between $200-$300 a month for something I wouldn't even be using. However, IF I go with a MA plan I can potentially get a plan that costs me next to nothing (with their payback plans) plus offer a few extra things like dental and gym memberships.

Going this route would give me a bit of piece of mind in that should I at some point need something outside of VA care I would have the MA. But an even bigger benefit is that it would keep me from getting penalized should I decide I want to go over to regular medicare down the road since you have one chance to convert from a MA plan to just plain medicare with no penalties. So in my case, going with MA plan would cost little to no money while giving me the option to get back on regular medicare down the line if I eventually find myself in a place of needing more care than the VA can give me and without paying penalties.

Does this make sense? Any other veterans using VA healthcare go this route for this very reason? I'm interested in hearing any experiences from veterans using the VA for their healthcare and what they did for their medicare options when they turned 65. TIA.

Our 32-year-old son came over to visit last evening for Mother's Day. He's professional soundman for a local historic opera house which gets some pretty big names come through so he know his stuff. He hadn't been to visit in awhile so he took an interest in my new pedalboard and started to ask some questions.

After a quick looks he asked, "Are those all the same brand pedal?" to which I replied no, they are all in fact different brands. I asked him what made him think they were the same and he noted the little button toppers I'd installed. I'd had a few drinks in my by then so I started going over what each pedal did for my signal chain.

I got to the Wampler Ego Mini compressor and was telling him all about compression and what it is and what it does when I felt his hand on my shoulder. I looked over at him and he was looking at me with a smirk and said sarcastically, "Is THAT what compression does?" I realized I was explaining compression to a professional soundman. DOH!

He did tell me that I did a REALLY good job explaining what compression does, at least!