BarnBuster
Virtually Unknown Member
from today's NYTimes. If you're approaching 65, please read. Every time I see one of these articles, I SMH and think how can it happen, but it does, even to educated, aware folks 
"Twenty years ago, George Zeppenfeldt-Cestero left his job as a hospital administrator in New York to open a one-person health care consulting firm. Since he was losing his employee medical coverage, he shopped around and bought a private health insurance plan through Aetna.
It was expensive, with premiums starting at about $1,000 a month, but “it paid for all my doctors’ visits and my medications,” he said. “I was a satisfied consumer.”
But several years ago, Aetna informed him that it was discontinuing that plan, sending him scrambling for another insurer. That’s when, applying for coverage through the state marketplace under the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Zeppenfeldt-Cestero learned that he (and, he argues, Aetna) had made a serious error. He should have signed up for Medicare Part B three years earlier when he turned 65.
By delaying, he had missed the best window — the so-called Initial Enrollment Period — to apply for Part B, which covers much of what we consider health care: doctor visits, tests, injectable drugs (including chemotherapy), ambulances, physical therapy and other non-hospital services. As a result, he has to pay permanently higher premiums, and he had to endure an unsettlingly long period — from December to July — before the coverage actually kicked in.
Such Part B mistakes appear to happen with some frequency. Last year, nearly 700,000 Medicare beneficiaries were paying Part B penalties, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Over several months, “I spoke to every advocacy and oversight agency out there to try to get this resolved in my favor,” he said. He called Social Security and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. He tried his senator’s office.
“They all said, ‘You’re (shit) out of luck.’”"
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/health/medicare-part-b.html
"Twenty years ago, George Zeppenfeldt-Cestero left his job as a hospital administrator in New York to open a one-person health care consulting firm. Since he was losing his employee medical coverage, he shopped around and bought a private health insurance plan through Aetna.
It was expensive, with premiums starting at about $1,000 a month, but “it paid for all my doctors’ visits and my medications,” he said. “I was a satisfied consumer.”
But several years ago, Aetna informed him that it was discontinuing that plan, sending him scrambling for another insurer. That’s when, applying for coverage through the state marketplace under the Affordable Care Act, Mr. Zeppenfeldt-Cestero learned that he (and, he argues, Aetna) had made a serious error. He should have signed up for Medicare Part B three years earlier when he turned 65.
By delaying, he had missed the best window — the so-called Initial Enrollment Period — to apply for Part B, which covers much of what we consider health care: doctor visits, tests, injectable drugs (including chemotherapy), ambulances, physical therapy and other non-hospital services. As a result, he has to pay permanently higher premiums, and he had to endure an unsettlingly long period — from December to July — before the coverage actually kicked in.
Such Part B mistakes appear to happen with some frequency. Last year, nearly 700,000 Medicare beneficiaries were paying Part B penalties, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services.
Over several months, “I spoke to every advocacy and oversight agency out there to try to get this resolved in my favor,” he said. He called Social Security and the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid. He tried his senator’s office.
“They all said, ‘You’re (shit) out of luck.’”"
https://www.nytimes.com/2018/10/26/health/medicare-part-b.html
