A Medigap policy can help you pay some of the costs that your Original Medicare won’t cover, including your copayments, coinsurance and annual deductibles. Plus, many policies help pay for services not included in Original Medicare. Supplement plans take over where your Original Medicare benefits leave off. That’s why these policies are also called Medicare Supplements or “MedSupp” plans. When you supplement your Original Medicare with an additional policy, Medicare pays its portion first and then your own plan kicks in to pay the rest (up to the limits of the policy).
With millions more Americans not working or receiving a pay check (they are not paying taxes into Medicare, less money going in), there is even less money. We all know that seniors on Medicare right now are depending on the younger generation to pay into the system. The money you put in years ago while you were working has already been spent on something else.
Even as President Obama accuses Mitt Romney and Representative Paul D. Ryan of trying to privatize and “voucherize” Medicare, his administration crows about the success of private health plans in delivering prescription drug benefits and other services to Medicare beneficiaries.
Just in time for the start of the Republican National Convention this week, Romney’s team is out with an ad spot featuring clips of Barack Obama in the 2008 election geared at nailing the label of Medicare-slasher on Obama. The commercial shows Obama attacking John McCain for his plan to make cuts in Medicare. Amusingly, Obama’s rationale at the time was strikingly similar to the one the Romney campaign is using for its Medicare-themed attacks on Obama.
