Social Security & Medicare

We partly selected Banker's Life since a friend sells it and it seemed as good as any since it is a very high rated company. Plus they don't have networks. Since my husband started on it in January, and I did in July I have found out that they also are MUCH easier to get approval for many things than the BC/CS policy I had under the ACA. My cardiologist recommended an MRI in February but BC/BS didn't approve it until July 28 - by then I had already scheduled on under Banker's Life which took effect July 1 and needed no pre-approval.

One thing to consider - avoid buying through groups such as AARP. While I am OK with AARP as an organization, they change which insurance companies they sell policies through depending on the bids. This means that if you get on one of the types of plans such as F or G that might be cancelled, you cannot be grandfathered in with your policy and might have to switch to a less comprehensive plan.

My husband is on a G plan and I am on a F one - for various reasons it made sense for us to select different ones.

What I do hate are the prescription plans - my husband selected the Walmart one, but they do not do automatic refills. Because of this he almost ran out of his medications. He now gets his regular meds through the mail order pharmacy but can still go to Walmart for newly prescribed meds. he pays about $17 a month for his drug plan.

On the other hand if I continued all my meds my drug policy would have cost over a thousand a month. I have not been sure two of the meds were doing any good and have a stockpile of them, so I left them off and got a Walgreen's plan for $22 a month. If after all the tests I am going through now, the doctors decide I need those meds, I will have to figure out how to afford them next year.

I do miss one of the big advantages of buying through the ACA website - the comparison under the same terms for all the available plans. That would make life so MUCH easier!