Page 4 - Cover letter and evaluation for Marcelle Nesci

health who don’t go to their doctors frequently will likely save $200-$300 a year in this
plan compared to the higher-premium Plan F. Estimated annual premiums are $2,200.

You might consider the high-deductible version of Plan F, whose benefits are identical to those
of standard Plan F except that it has a $2,300 annual deductible. That doesn’t mean you pay the
first $2,300 of medical care, since Medicare will pay its share of the cost for covered services –
80% for most Part B services and 100% for hospitalization after the Part A deductible is paid.

That means that if you go to the doctor for a Medicare-covered visit and your supplemental
coverage is the high-deductible version of Plan F, you will pay the 20% balance until the plan’s
deductible has been met. Probably the largest single out-of-pocket risk in this plan is that you
would pay the $1,364 Part A deductible if you were hospitalized and the plan’s deductible had
not been met. You can probably get the high-deductible version of Plan F for $1,100 a year.

These are not the only good Medigap plans, of course, and you might want to check pages 6-7
of the evaluation to see the benefit designs of all 10 Medigap plans.

The pricing of Medigap policies

The premium comparisons in Appendix B2 are from the State of New York’s Department of
Financial Regulation and are current as of January 1. Phone numbers for the insurance
companies that sell Medigap policies in New York are also listed. The premiums shown in
Appendices B3 through B5 are from CSG Actuarial, a firm that provides quotes for insurance
agents. Some of these premiums may be lower than you can get because the commissions are
not included (there’s no way for me to know which ones these are).

The CSG Actuarial premiums may be helpful in a couple of ways. First, they are sorted from
lowest to highest, which makes it easier to identify the lowest-premium companies. Second, in
most cases the CSG Actuarial comparisons give you the insurers’ financial ratings. This is less
important, of course, in New York where you can switch insurers easily.

Some insurers give discounts for various reasons – automatic debit payments, paying a year’s
premiums in advance, and household discounts when spouses buy a policy from the same
company. Also, some insurers provide extra benefits like health club memberships.

The Medicare Advantage plan in your evaluation

The UnitedHealthcare Medicare Complete Choice Plan 1 is an Advantage regional PPO plan. It
has a large network of more than 20,000 providers, although the network is spread across the
state. It has zero premiums and a zero deductible for health coverage (it does have a $16
monthly Rx drug premium, which is included in the prescription drug costs discussed below).

Because your fixed costs are much lower in this plan than they are with a Medigap policy, you
might save a substantial amount. The tradeoff is that in exchange for lower fixed costs, you will

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