Why Everyone Is Suddenly Calling You At 65

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Turning 65 can feel like someone put your name on every Medicare call list in America.

The mailers. The phone calls. The “urgent” warnings.

Today on the Medicare Daily Show, we’re talking about why everyone suddenly starts contacting you at 65, how fear is often used to push quick decisions, and how to cut through the noise before you choose anything.

Call in with your questions! We look forward to answering them live. 

Transcript

SPEAKER_02 0:03

When you turn 65, it seems like everybody knows about that, and they're all trying to harass you, probably in order to get you to buy a certain type of plan so they can make a commission. Now, it doesn't mean all of these people that are contacting you are bad. Some of them probably do have your good at heart. But we just want to talk about uh today why everyone's calling you 65, what you can do about it, what they're probably calling you for, and maybe even how to stop those calls. Welcome to Medicare School Daily. My name is Josh Music, and this is my dad, Marvin Music, and we're just happy to be here with you. If you are starting Medicare, if you're starting Social Security, if you're just retiring, not sure what to do, confused about all these complex government systems full of rules and deadlines and penalties, you are in the right place. This is where you can learn exactly how you can start Medicare and Social Security without making a mistake. A mistake that could be lifelong. Just a moment, you're gonna hear from my dad on all of uh what to do about all these people calling you at 65. But if you have a question or a concern about uh some piece of mail you've gotten or something that's gone on in your Medicare situation, we would love to talk to you. The phone number to call in, be a part of the show is 833-824-2004, 833-824-2004. If you need help comparing your Medicare options, getting enrolled in a supplement, plan G, a plan N, an advantage plan, a drug plan, whatever it is, you can call, talk to somebody at our office. They've all been trained by my dad. The phone number for our office is different. It's 800-782-667-6800-782-6676. We would love to help you. So, Dad, let's talk about why is everyone calling?

SPEAKER_00 1:39

All right. Well, for years and years, we have been giving out our our dates of birth. And those are stacked stocked away, saved away in all kinds of databases today. So there's no way made accessible to every insurance broker on the planet. No way you're going to be able to escape all the activity. Uh we wish we could uh uh tell you a way to get away from it, but it's not gonna happen. You will be bombarded uh normally from about six months prior to turning 65, and then uh about uh one or two months after, and then every year uh as we go through the open enrollment season, you will be bombarded. So the question is, what uh can you do? Why is this happening? So the first thing I want to I want to give you kind of a positive uh note is that some of you need to really be paying attention to your mailbox because if you are already enrolled in Social Security, meaning you're receiving Social Security benefits, it could be your own retirement, it could be spousal benefits, it could be survivor, meaning widow or widower benefits, you're gonna be automatically enrolled into Medicare. Uh so there will be uh one piece of mail that's gonna be very important to you, and that's this. Uh you're gonna get a Medicare A and B card about a hundred days prior to your birth month. 100 days. So um uh if we're shooting this uh uh program today in July, and so we know that if you are turning 65 in November and you are on Social Security, your Medicare card is gonna show up about the 15th to the 20th of this month. If you to turn 65 in October, you would have got your Medicare card in the mail about uh June 15th to the 20th. And so again, lots of junk mail, but that is not a piece of junk mail. And the reason I'm telling you about this is because you'd be shocked how many people actually throw their Medicare cards away because they're getting so much junk mail, they look like they feel like it's just another um uh piece of uh mail they don't need. But that has an impact.

SPEAKER_02 3:30

Like if let's say you you are on Social Security, you're retired, retired early, your spouse is still working, and you're covered by that plan. You're gonna get enrolled in A, which doesn't have a cost, and B, which has at least a $200 cost, maybe more if you're high income and you didn't even know about it, and all of a sudden that's gonna start coming out of your Social Security check. So you're gonna wake up like to a social security deposit one day the following month, and it's like, oh, I it's less. Yeah, it's less. What happened? Yeah. Or maybe you don't even look at it, and then that's even worse, and then you don't catch it for months. So very careful.

SPEAKER_00 4:01

In that regard, I think it's very important that you understand uh even if you're not on Social Security, you have come to a place where you're going to have to make a decision about your Medicare. And so I want I want to share with you a couple of things, and then we'll talk more about you know just the specific mail pieces that are coming. But number one, uh you do have some options with your Medicare at 65. Uh they would be you can have A only, you can have A and B, um, and you can have nothing. Those are your options. And so for those of you that um uh may want to have A only, it's because you or your spouse are still working and you have a great group plan. The price is good, the coverage is good, you're very happy uh with that plan. And if that's you, then you may want to consider having A only. The only uh uh reason we would tell you don't have A only is if you're gonna keep working or your spouse's and you're contributing to a health savings account, uh, then you want nothing. And don't worry about being penalized, you're not gonna be penalized, just simply do nothing with Medicare. And when you get ready to retire or your spouse does, then you can come into Medicare and get A and B, no problem. So the the point is I want to make sure you understand that that is an option uh to do nothing. If you have an HSA, that's exactly what would be our advice to you. But if you don't have an HSA, but you're still working, your spouse is, then just take A only. It's a good thing to do. Uh now I want to address what you said, Josh, and that is for people that are automatically enrolled into Medicare. Card's gonna show up, folks. There's nothing you can do, it's gonna show up. But if you do have a good group plan, cost is good, coverage is good. What we would encourage you to do is to uh disenroll from Medicare B. Uh and the way you do that is you just simply mail the card back in. You do have to sign it on the back, you mail it back in, and then Medicare will drop off the B, you can pick it up at a later date very easily, uh, and they'll send you a new card that has A only. Okay, and so and the reason is what Johnson suggested, it's gonna be expensive. If if you're covered by a group plan that's 20 or more employees on the payroll, uh Medicare is taking the second payer position. Your group plan is still gonna pay first. And so you're paying at least $203 a month for to put Medicare in the in that uh first payer uh second payer position. I just would not do that. If the if you find yourself in that scenario, send the card back in, have A only and pick up B at a later date. All right, so those are your options uh when it comes to um uh your uh Medicare. Now let's talk about all the all the junk mail.

SPEAKER_02 6:23

Can I ask a question? So, like, because people the the information shows up in various forms. It could be advertisements on the internet, it could be advertisements on the television, radio, whatever it is. People showing up at your door, um things showing up in the mail. Who is sending this? Like what are the different types of information that's coming in? Right. Because I think the who is indicative of the question.

SPEAKER_00 6:46

Well some of those are those mailers are coming directly from insurance companies, but the majority of them are coming from uh marketing organizations. Uh and those marketing organizations are trying to get you to either mail a card in or call an 800 number. Um and so what they're going to do is uh they're gonna do everything they can to, if it's a marketing company, they're gonna try to uh get your information and then sell that uh to brokers. Yeah. And then that's uh why the phone will start ringing once you give that information out.

SPEAKER_02 7:15

Would it be fair to say the mail, the people showing up at your door, the uh the advertisements all come from one of three buckets? Either it's an insurance carrier who's promoting their plan, which when they do that, you know, obviously they're gonna talk about the pros, they're not gonna talk about the cons of it. So most of them, obviously, there's two ways you can get your Medicare benefits through a supplement plan or through a Medicare Advantage plan. There is very little marketing done on supplement plans. Most of the marketing that is done is done for Medicare Advantage plans. So it could be an insurance company saying, Hey, buy our thing, buy our plan. This is the best plan. The second type of advertisement could be um done by what's called the TPMO, a third-party marketing organization. And this is a multi-billion dollar industry that people don't even really know exists. But anytime you go to any Medicare conference, function, whatever it is, about half of the people there work for this thing called a TPMO, a third-party marketing organization. And their purpose is to try to figure out how to make clickbait ads, whether that's on the internet, whether that's on TV, whether that's through the radio, in order to get people to feel scared and to call. Right. And so what happens whenever they get somebody on the phone or they get somebody to fill out a postal reply card or get somebody to fill out a form on the internet, this third-party market organization, they go out and they sell that information to whoever the highest bidder is. So you're contacting some the 1-800 Medicare helpline or whatever the hotline, like whatever the company is, they're turning around and you are going to be shipped off to who knows who. I mean, multiple people. Yeah, in multiple people. And so that's when you fill out your information once and then 10 people call you for the next month or two months. And that happens pretty, pretty frequently. So insurance company, marketing orgs that don't really know anything about the business, they just know how to get people to call, scare people up, rile them up, bait and switch, sort of a thing. And then the third people that could be um putting mail in your mailbox, seeing things on the internet would be probably people like us who are brokers who come into the marketplace saying, hey, we want to help people enroll, right? We're gonna get paid for that. We're not doing it for free, but we want to help people learn what their options are, compare all of those options amongst a bunch of different plan types, a bunch of different insurance carriers, and then figure out what the right one is. Those, I think, are the three types of people. If you were to choose one to work with, obviously we would say it'd be a broker. If you go with an insurance carrier, you just gotta know when you call in on that piece of mail, they're not gonna tell you. You're not gonna go to McDonald's and McDonald's is gonna say, hey, why don't you go buy Wendy's burger or go buy Burger King burger? What are they gonna say? They're gonna say, buy ours. So when you call an insurance company, you can do that.

SPEAKER_00 9:51

Yeah, there's no comparing when that happens.

SPEAKER_02 9:52

No comparison. And I I mean, we pull up plans all the time, and there's 30, 40, 50 different options in a zip code. That insurance carrier is gonna tell you about their number one plan. Right.

SPEAKER_00 10:01

Well, the average market right now, Josh, has uh 40 advantage points, average. Yeah. Some we know have 70 to 80 different options.

SPEAKER_02 10:08

So then you toss toss in 20 Medicare supplement carriers that offered three or four different plans, and you're at over a hundred options. So you call an insurance carrier doing a lot of legwork, you're going to get somebody who's gonna push their plan. You call in on one of these, you know. T PMO numbers. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:26

They're trying to sell your information.

SPEAKER_02 10:27

They're they don't know anything, right? They're just trying to ship you off to somebody who can sell you and ship you off to multiple people. So luck of the draw, if you're going to get it even sometimes it will go to an insurance carrier, it'll go to a call center, whatever it is. The third type would be a broker like ourselves. And I think that's probably your easiest path. Right. You know, but then you got to find someone you can trust, and there's there's several of us out here. Yeah. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 10:51

And I would say this uh you you have to be mindful that uh the majority of marketing dollars today are being directed towards uh advantage plans. And the reason is because there's billions of dollars that are being made on advantage plans, uh, and so that's what m the majority of people want you to buy. They want you to buy um uh the advantage plan because uh uh now uh they're gonna be you know get a higher commission uh and they're also gonna get paid uh lifetime residual. So uh you have to realize that you may want an advanced plan, but you may not. So I think you do yourself a favor by making sure that you truly understand all your options before you make some decision. And what happens and what's kind of frustrating me being in this business this long is that uh the majority of people pushing advanced plans are going to dangle the carrot before you. They're gonna talk about what don't you want to get a little dental benefit, or maybe a free gym membership, or maybe an over-the-counter card, and they start talking about these little freebies uh that uh Medicare doesn't offer, but the advantage plan will. But what they will not tell you is how that advantage plan is going to work. And that's really what matters to you. You're gonna care not about a free gym membership. You're gonna make you're gonna care, hey, will I get that knee replacement when I need it? Uh will I uh be able to go to the doctors or the hospitals that I want to choose? And that's really what should matter to you. It is the quality of your insurance, not the quality of some of these uh little perks that are thrown in by the advanced plan. So just don't be deceived by it. I know they're focused. They they want to talk about the perks immediately, and you have to say no, that that may be nice, but but I want to know do my doctors take the plan and will they forever? Uh uh if if I uh you know need a full hip replacement, am I gonna get that or am I gonna get just a rod only? How about if I have to go to a skilled nursing facility? Uh will I get to stay sufficient time? Uh, because many times advantage companies are gonna send you home uh prematurely. Happens all the time, folks, every single day. People get discharged from skilled nursing facilities uh prematurely. Uh and so things are going to happen on that advantage plan that's being promoted by the agents so they can get a higher commission, and you just have to uh settle this issue. How is this plan going to work? And we and others like us, that's what we focus on to make sure you truly understand what you're doing, the consequence of your decision, because um sometimes these decisions cannot be reversed.

SPEAKER_02 13:11

Okay, let's talk to Joseph in Illinois. Joseph, welcome to Medicare School Daily. What do you have for us?

SPEAKER_01 13:17

Hey, thank you. As someone who is uh a newbie to Medicare, right, got the Social Security deduction thing set up on auto deduct the Medicare plan G, got my plan D plan in effect. I'm just wondering, and I'm assuming there are certain things I should uh in other words, instead of just doing this set it and forget it sort of mentality, I'm wondering if um there are, for example, in three months, six months, or twelve months things that I ought to keep my eye on and be vigilant as being someone who's new to the process. You know, so so things don't flip that I should be you know aware of and take action on if necessary. And I was wondering if you can maybe share me share with me some of those things to do some don't to stay vigilant on say the first six months or first year or so for new via I got a couple of suggestions, and Josh, you probably have some.

SPEAKER_00 14:05

Um I think there's just two things. Okay. I have two also. You should start.

SPEAKER_02 14:11

So the first thing is with a Medicare supplement, your plan G, it really truly can be set it and forget it. Okay. There's nothing that's going to change in that plan benefits except for the premium. Okay. So you're going to get a notice uh probably once a year, depending on the carrier. Some carriers uh take a like a half rate increase every six months is kind of weird, but depends on the carrier in the state. But generally it's gonna go up once a year. Uh that does not generally happen January 1st, it oftentimes happens between like March and June. So you're gonna get a notice and it's gonna say, hey, your premium went up by X amount. If that all looks good, nothing you need to do. There's no one you need to call, there's no box you need to check, just let it go. Okay. If you get that premium premium notice and it's like, oh, it went up 30%, which is not gonna do probably, but if it were, you could be like, Oh, uh, let's call Medicare school and let's see if they can shop and find me a different plan. Does that make sense? So truly, like not a lot to do there. Uh your your drug plan. This is the one thing that I think you should probably do every year. Now, the truth is only about one in ten people change their drug plan from year to year. It's it's like 10 or 12 percent. It's not a lot, but you should always verify that the plan you're on is still a good plan for you for next year. Okay, and that's okay, that's really easy to do. You just go to Medicare.gov when you're there, and you do this from October 15th to December the 7th. So this is the window to do this. So from October 15th to December the 7th, you go to Medicare.gov, you put in your zip code, you type in the name of your medications, you choose your pharmacy, and you click submit. It's gonna list out every drug plan that is available to you, and the plan at the top is the one that will be the plan that represents the lowest out-of-pocket cost for you for the following year. Okay, now it's an estimation, right? Obviously, if you have a medication change, that would change things. But they're saying the premium, the deductible, the co-pays for the medications, they tally it all up and say this is probably the plan you should be on next year. If that is not the plan that you're on, then you click enroll, put in your name, Medicare card number, state of birth address, and you're done. Okay. Like it can be 15 minutes of just going to Medicare.gov, double checking you're on the right drug plan. If you need to make a change, make a change, and it's just off to the races. That used to be something that our company like helped everyone do, but the insurance carriers um over the last couple of years have basically pulled that and Medicare have pulled that away from brokers being able to do much with. But the good news is it's simplified down, so it's like a 10-minute, 15-minute process once a year. Okay. Okay. So that's that matter. Sorry. No, that's that's it. Go ahead.

SPEAKER_01 17:08

And thank you. Um, just to be clear, because I signed up effective for Medicare last month. I'm literally a newbie 30, 30, 31 days and is that unlike, in other words, you said that toward the end of the year, I'll get some sort of a notice about part D, or does it matter that I signed up in June, or does everybody automatically get rolled to how does that work?

SPEAKER_02 17:32

So on your Medicare supplement, like your plan G, um, that that kind of runs off of an anniversary date. So it's like June 1st to May 31st, and then it's a new term. But it's guaranteed, this is a jargony technical term. It's called guaranteed renewable for life. They can't cancel that med set up on you. Nothing's gonna change in the benefits. The only thing that could change is that premium. Okay. Now, the drug plan is a calent calendar year. Drug plan runs from January 1st to December 31st, and then there will be a new plan. The premium will change, the copace may change, the preferred pharmacy may change, like that sort of stuff. So that's a calendar year deal. And so the time to change to shop that and see if you need to make a change, and nine out of ten will not, but to see if you need to make a change is October 15th through December the 7th. That's called the annual enrollment period. Okay? For part D. For part. Part D. Yep. Yep. That's everyone who's on a drug plan would would make changes during that time.

SPEAKER_01 18:32

Perfect. And will they and thank you, will they notify me uh, like that's the company that I'm using, do they notify me in the mail saying, hey, your plan sex renew, or is that totally different? I have to be I have to take definitions on my end.

SPEAKER_02 18:45

So here's what'll happen. Uh by law, by October 1st, and it doesn't always happen, but they're supposed to, the insurance career is supposed to send you something um called uh what's it called? ANOC. ANOC. Annual notice of change. And so it's gonna say, hey, your premium went from what uh what how much is your premium right now on your plan? Is it a no-cost plan, drug plan? Nope. Um in fact, yeah. Yeah, so so it it went from $0 to $4.70. Or it went from $23 to $40, or it went from $10 to $0. Like it's gonna tell you that. And it's also going to change, it's also gonna tell you if there were any medications that were dropped from the formulary. So if you are on some medication, and this doesn't happen that commonly, so I don't want to make it seem like it's a big deal, but it can't, there can be formulary changes. And a formulary is just a fancy word that means this is a list of medications that the drug plan covers. And it puts it all into a tier and it tells you kind of what that copay is. So read through that ANOC annual notice of change. It's supposed to be there by October 1st, tell you the premium change and any formulary changes. But if you don't do anything, then it'll just auto renew. You don't need to tell anyone you want it for next year. It will just auto renew. The only exception to that would be if you get a notice that says this plan is ending. Then you're gonna need a definite change. And that happens. Okay. That will happen sometimes, not commonly, but can.

SPEAKER_00 20:07

Yeah, just be sure that you you don't assume that because you like it this year, you'll like it next year. That's where people make a mistake. They uh get a little lax about uh making sure they are on the right drug plan because they really can change drastically.

SPEAKER_02 20:21

Uh, well, we saw we've seen plans, especially the last couple of years, go from you know, uh $10 uh in 2024 to uh $40 in 2025 to $80 in 2026, and people don't review their annual notice of change, they don't go into Medicare.gov, and then we hear about it in January and they're going, my plan went from $20 to $80.

SPEAKER_00 20:45

Well, I'm I'm sorry. It's too late. So we just don't want to get stuck on a plan. And and Josh's uh comments were really the top two. I just would add this. Uh have you used the plan yet your first month?

SPEAKER_01 20:59

Uh well actually I went and did my yearly physical. I deliberately timed it for June so that I can take advantage of it.

SPEAKER_00 21:06

All right, sounds good. Well well, we just uh would encourage you to make sure that uh you uh as you give uh you know your insurance cards, you're reminding them, hey, I'm I'm now on Medicare, because sometimes uh the billing departments mess up the first bill, and that can be a real nuisance. Uh so you're saying, you know, what can you do? You just make sure that uh that provider knows that um you're on Medicare, you have a supplemental plan, and and there's not much you can do other than just emphasize that uh the very first thing.

SPEAKER_02 21:33

A lot of times they'll run your old insurance and then it creates this thing, this issue called crossover. Yeah. And you have to make a phone call to Medicare to sort it out.

SPEAKER_00 21:40

Right. And then the other thing I'd add, uh you have a plan G, by the way, that's what I have also. Uh what you want to make sure of is that uh you're not paying any bills beyond the the the B deductible. You're gonna be out of pocket 283. And what's gonna happen and have with me, you may get a bill for 140, you may get a bill for 30, you may get a bill for 70. It's it's gonna vary depending on the bill. Depending upon what services you get, but no more than 283 out of your pocket. And then after that you're done. So if it looks like you're getting bill for beyond 283, you just simply would call the insurance company and make sure that you have paid with the accurate amount.

SPEAKER_02 22:17

Nine times out of ten, when there's some bill that you're trying to sort out and it seems like you shouldn't pay it, call the provider's office and say, I think you made a coding error or there's some billing coding error and they will fix it.

SPEAKER_00 22:29

And it becomes a major issue, always call us. We're happy to be involved with that. But again, I don't think it happens a lot, but a lot of people are confused that it could be uh th this this 283 could be multiple bills, a small bill of twenty dollars and one of fifty, whatever. But uh that's the other thing you're paying attention to. And then next year it's going to reset. Yeah, we don't know what the B deductible will be in 2027, but it'll probably be a little bit higher.

SPEAKER_02 22:53

That is the only thing. So your inch your plan G benefits will never change, but the plan G benefits state that you are responsible for the part B as an boy deductible. That is set by Medicare. It comes out, it's a news item, usually in November or December of the year. And so that will probably go up. It goes up. And that's it. There's I think one year I can remember where it went down, but it generally always goes up. So a few minutes.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

But um that was that's that's the things, Joseph. Uh any anything else on your mind? We're gonna get to another caller here.

SPEAKER_01 23:24

Uh you know, I I but just to clear up on that 283, is that a calendar year based or a one-year cycle of when you start the plan?

SPEAKER_00 23:31

Calendar year. Calendar year. So you see you started 6-1, so this is your deductible for this year. Get this. If you had started December 1, that's still your deductible for this year. It's a calendar year. It resets every January. Okay?

unknown 23:43

Okay.

SPEAKER_00 23:44

Great question. Yes. Good to talk to you. You take care. Thank you. Bye-bye. Thanks.

SPEAKER_02 23:52

Did you see this? So there was a Nash this says national, this is on the Department of Justice uh website. Uh came out last week. National health care fraud takedown results in 455 defendants charged with connection with over 6.5 billion in fraud. A lot of um hospice stuff. Takedown resulted in the apprehension and returned, but I mean whatever. But listen to some of these numbers. I think this is crazy. The takedown involves cutting edge use of data analytics to target the worst actors, the seizure of over $182 million in cash, luxury vehicle, jewelry, and other assets. Um 1,400 different providers, 1,079 providers revoked of billing privileges for 1,403 providers, civil charges against 13 defendants. Like these people were raking it in. Six and a half billion dollars of fraud. See, that's kind of like in my mind. Um uh that's kind of uh in my mind why you know if there's gonna be some cap on Medicare or whatever. Medicare's terrible at keeping track of this. Right? I mean, we're just gonna see premiums skyrocket because of things like this. They're getting smarter and smarter. Here's a picture of a yacht, a picture of a Bentley that they seized.

SPEAKER_00 25:05

Yeah. That's just really, really sad. I'm glad.

SPEAKER_02 25:07

It is, right? Like, and it's hurting everyone. Part B premium goes up, part B deductible goes up. Everything goes up so that you know, some of a yacht. Yeah. Um just crazy. Yeah. Ibrahim Hilmi landing in the United States. He had he personally $3.7 billion in fraud, that guy.

SPEAKER_00 25:26

Good. I'm glad he's in handcuffs. I wish they'd lock him up for 50 years. They probably will. Yeah, I hope they would.

SPEAKER_02 25:30

Illegal opioid distribution, um, let's see, Medicaid fraud, which obviously there's a lot of that in Minnesota. Patient, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:40

When you think about it, the the the biggest g government program exists is Social Security, and the second one is Medicare.

SPEAKER_02 25:45

Yeah, of course they're gonna be people trying to figure out um figure out how to fraud or have fraud in that system. 865,000 Bulgari necklace. A necklace for 865 grand. They they somebody somebody they they read. Yeah, they were they didn't work for the money. Beach resort in the Philippines constructed with 4.6 million dollars allegedly stolen from Medicare in a wound graft fraud scheme. Luxury boxes at the NFL stadium, uh, half a million dollars in fine art, some lady down in Florida.

unknown 26:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 26:20

Just get busted, which is good. Very good. Yeah. I hope they keep at it and find those. Well, it'll be yeah, it impacts everybody. Yeah. If you are confused about Medicare and just unsure who to trust, I get it. Obviously, there's a lot of people that are trying to contact you through various ways as you have just learned. If you want to talk to people who are already on Medicare or, you know, starting in the same path as you, picking out plans, figuring out what the right thing is, uh, probably your best resources is open up your little Facebook app on your phone, type in Medicare School Community. And when you do that, you can click join group. There's 50,000, 60,000 people in there that are on Medicare already or that are starting their Medicare journey, that are talking, asking questions, billings issue, claims issue, plan issues. This premium went up, this premium went down. What do I do for getting this prescription drug covered? Uh, there's a lot of questions to get asked every single day. We answer some of these uh right here, and we're gonna do that. But I encourage you, open up your Facebook app, uh, type in Medicare School Community and join that group, and it's a great resource for you to hear from people who are not trying to sell you anything. So, Ralph, uh a couple days ago, asked in the group, we have to get major home repairs done. Is there a way to know if I take a certain amount out of my 401k, will it affect my Medicare premium? My wife and I both uh are past full retirement age.

SPEAKER_00 27:45

All right. So anytime you're going to take uh money out of 401k or an IRA because you did not pay taxes on that, when you pull it out, that's gonna be income for you. So it's absolutely going to affect uh or possibly or could affect what you're gonna pay for your Part B premium. So I think that the main thing to understand here is that uh there is a threshold that Medicare establishes every year for a single filer. That threshold is $109,000. So that's all your sources of income, that's capital gains, uh, that's everything that's going uh towards income is going to be counted uh towards um uh your uh calculation for your part B premium. So single, uh $109,000 and uh and above, you're going to pay more for part B. A couple, it's just doubled. It's really simple. It's $218,000. So if you keep that uh modified adjusted gross income below $218,000, then uh there's no impact upon uh the you know your withdrawals. If you're gonna exceed that, now you're gonna pay additional at least for one year, uh, because the ERMIS are recalculated uh every year. And so what you have to pay attention to is what is the threshold? Uh so yes, you can take money out, but if you go above that threshold amount, then uh it's gonna be uh a really a painful penalty uh uh just to get the you know the house repairs done. Trevor Burrus, Jr.

SPEAKER_02 29:05

So what are some kind of other ways that Medicare premiums could go up? Okay. If there are any. Uh-huh. Once you're already on.

SPEAKER_00 29:12

Yeah, once you're already on, meaning well, if you're still working, uh certainly your income is going to be counted towards um uh your work, but stay on your Medicare coverage. Exactly right.

SPEAKER_02 29:22

That that would be one way. And I think that's that's something that can happen to people. Like if they, you know, I decided I didn't want to return or return to work and so or I decide I didn't want to stay retired, but they're already on Medicare, you can go to your employer and say, I don't want those health benefits, and you just stay on your Medicare. But the thing to be aware of, of course, is if you go take a six-figure job, what that's probably going to do is push you up to now your Medicare premiums are starting to go up, right? Because of that income-related monthly adjustment.

SPEAKER_00 29:48

Trevor Burrus, Jr.: Yeah, exactly right. Yeah. And the other thing would be uh if someone were to sell a home and had a huge profit uh because uh if you're single and you make less than $250,000 or a profit, which would be a capital gain. $500 if you're married. $500,000. Right. So but if we're above those amounts, that's certainly going to impact uh what we pay for a year. And you know, these are recalculated every year, so if you were to do that, that that may go up. But there's nothing you can do about that. You can't appeal your IRMAS because you sold a home, or you can't appeal your ERM.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Now, if you happen to do that around the time that you retired and stopped working or retired partially, you know, partial work reduction, then you can because the Social Security doesn't care where that income comes from. They just care that you have a life-changing event, right? That allows you to be able to appeal that ERM. Right.

SPEAKER_00 30:38

Simple example. If I retire this year in 2026, uh Medicare is looking back at my modified adjusted growth in 2024. And let's suppose you did a huge Roth conversion at that time, or even you know, had uh SOC options or something that happened in 2024. But what you can do, even though you know it wasn't just your job that contributed to that high income, it was a Roth conversion, you can still use the life-changing event of retiring or semi-retiring and saying, don't look at 2024. I'm gonna give you 2026. And they will look at 2026 because of that life-changing event. Okay? And so uh hopefully your financial advisor uh can give you advice as to the timing of those uh kind of conversions and withdrawals, and uh you can benefit from the life-changing event uh even though you know uh it wasn't uh your job that uh caused your uh income uh you know to go down. It's it's the fact that you had this. Just time it correctly.

SPEAKER_02 31:35

The other thing that a lot of people don't realize is there's this thing that's coming down the road. Uh if you're turning 65 this year, ten years from now, there's this thing called an RMD, required minimum distribution. And most people haven't even heard of this. But a required minimum distribution is where the government says, hey, all that money that you saved, your 401ks, your IRAs, your 403Bs, your TSPs, all of this stuff that you have not paid taxes on, guess what? You gotta start pulling that money out now, and you got to start paying taxes on it. And so what uh hopefully you are planning for is knowing that this is coming down the road, this can set people up for failure at 75. All of a sudden, their premiums for Medicare Part B start getting these ERMAs, and there's no way to appeal it. All of a sudden, you're just paying twice as much as everyone else is for your Medicare uh Part B and your Part D. There's an IRMA on both sides. And so what you need to do is get with someone. If you don't have anyone, we have a financial planning team here at MedicareSchool.com that can help you with this, but start planning now. Start saying, okay, how much money, how much is it projected to grow over the next 10 years? And is there an amount that I can pull out to stay underneath IRMA levels to position myself better so that down the road, I don't have, when I'm 75, have an IRMA and see my Medicare premiums doubled. And the government is not saying that you have to pull this money out of these accounts and spend it, right? A lot of people pull the money out, they pay the taxes, they put it into some other sort of reinvest it. Yeah, put it into some other uh type of an account that doesn't have this guaranteed force you to take income in a certain year beginning at 75. Because the way that required minimum distribution works out is it's based upon your life expectancy. And every year that you live longer, your life expectancy goes down. The government's goal is to get all of that money out and taxed so that so that you're, yeah, by the time you you you pass away. So the amount maybe here that you have to pull out at 75, and then the amount goes up the next year, and it goes up the next year, and it goes up the next year. So now you're 85 and you're like, you know, that percentage you're pulling out so much. And if you don't pull this money out, what most people don't realize is there's a 50, a 5.0% tax or penalty on the money that you should have pulled out. So let's say you were supposed to pull out $40,000 and you didn't pull it out because you didn't know about it, um, you will get a penalty of $20,000. Okay. That's a huge penalty. There's not going to pull it out. And so what we don't want to do is see that, and though those of you who have larger 401ks, larger IRAs, this is going to push you into IRMA territory very, very easily. Uh, years ago, I mean for forever, like less than five percent of people had an IRMA. By 2030, it's projected that over 30% of people will be paying a surcharge for their Part B, right? This is crazy. So if you don't have somebody that can talk to you through this, if your financial advisor right now is not helping you through this, we have a team that can do that. Uh phone number to call into our office for any sort of help. Medicare, financial, whatever it is. Phone number is 800-782-6676, 800-782-6676. We uh would love to be there for you. Yesterday, a brand new program rolled out in Medicare. We've talked about it before on the show, but we're gonna talk about it again because it just started and it's how people are getting their GLP1s for $50. It's a little bit complicated. There are rules. It's not just like, hey, Doc, I want GLP one, give it to me. And Medicare pays for it somehow, and it's $50. That's not how it works. There are more stipulations. So next week, Monday, we will be talking about the GLP ones. How does all this work? How can you get it for $50 under Medicare? Maybe you can, maybe you can't, but you're gonna learn everything you need to know about it uh on Monday. We'll see you then.