1. People are confused about how Medicare works with private plans.
2. "Complete Idiots..." and "...for Dummies" titles are insulting.
3. People are skeptical of printed material affiliated with carriers or political agendas.
4. People resist change, and it costs them money, every year.
5. Advertisements on TV and in the mail, while not wrong, are incomplete.
6. People receive erroneous information and find out the consequences later.
7. Headlines on the news are making people more worried, not less.
This is a long list, and it it isn't close to complete.
Maximize Your Medicare is written for a wide variety of people.
Getting old is scary for everyone. Your parents get old, and you watch them slowly deteriorate. Sometimes it is their bodies. Sometimes it is their minds. Sometimes, it is both. Proud people become less confident. Candidly, I object to the idea of making the situation WORSE by referring to Medicare-eligible people as "Clueless," "Idiots," or "Dummies." It is insulting and degrading, at the wrong time, to the wrong people.
Unfortunately, the system around them isn't easy. It isn't going to get easier. Leave your politics at the doorstep: there is no political solution to the fact that the average age of the population is increasing. Period. The fiscal and economic backdrop is not easy. I don't believe in "coulda, woulda, shoulda." If you took a particular angle on this issue as it relates to healthcare costs, I can EASILY debate the issue from the other angle, and to a stalemate. EASILY.
What I can do, what I have done here, is reduce the confusion. Sometimes we don't know where the confusion originates. The book sorts this out. Sometimes the retiree misunderstands. Sometimes the retiree is misinformed. As above, I am not trying to assess systematic blame. Maximize Your Medicare is for finding solutions, and for empowering seniors, or those that care for them. Maybe finding the answer alone is not possible: then, you require assistance. If this is the case, then Maximize Your Medicare is written so that you ask the right questions.
The examples called "This Happens" are not fiction. They are real. There are almost 20 of them in the book. They have occurred. I could tell you their names. I won't, out of respect for them. I am 100% certain these situations will occur again. 100%. Informed correctly, a person eligible for Medicare CAN make a choice that suits their personal situation best. I am not here to prioritize it for you. That is up to your health, financial, and personal situation.
Maybe Maximize Your Medicare is just a small contribution in helping our aging society do so with more grace and dignity.