Medicare Supplement Plans M and N Lower Premiums?

Is the news floating around in cyberspace true, that there will be lower premiums for Medicare supplement plans M and N?

For those of you that don’t know what Medicare supplementary plans
are, they are meant to bridge the gap between the policy coverage of
the original Medicare
and the actual bill, when it arrives in the mail later.This “gapping”
became necessary when it was discovered that the original Medicare plan didn’t pay for every medical service actually needed, and you were dealing with a medical disaster.

If you stop to think about that explanation, it will make a great
deal of sense to find out that there is more than one “gap” between the
original plan and your bill. In order to do something about that gap,
you do need to have Medicare
to begin with, and then supplement it with other plans to fill the
gaps. This analogy is a bit like filling teeth in that the dentist
takes the existing original tooth and fills in the gaps with
supplemental material to make it whole again.

Notice the use of the term “gap” and it will come as no surprise
that the plans to fill in the original Medicare are referred to as
Medigap policies. Medigap policies are run by private insurance
companies who sell them to the public for varying prices. While the
plans themselves are standardized, meaning they are the same in every
state, the prices tend to be different depending on what the insurance
company wishes to charge for them.

Despite the fact that Medigap policies are controlled by private
health insurance companies, they still must have common rules to be
followed when it comes to actually selling the Medigap policies. First
and foremost is there are only 12 standard policies running from plan A
to L. Each of their policies has its own set of benefits as well.

What is often not clearly understood by many people is that most of
the Medigap policies give consumers the basic benefits of plans A and
B, and in addition to the basic benefits, they also have their own
advantages.

The 12 plans (A-L) have been around since 1992, but now there may be
two “new” plans introduced in June 2010, plans M and N. The main
feature of these two plans will be that they are supposedly going to
provide lower premium rates as an alternative to the existing Medicare
Supplement plans. While it isn’t entirely clear what M and N may offer,
it is predicted that they should sell well because of the lower
premiums.
With any change in Medicare or Medicare supplements,
make sure you take the time to read each policy you decide to buy so
you “know” just precisely what health coverage you actually have.

Richard Cantu is with Medicare supplements resource, GoMedigap.com. To learn more about Medicare, Medicare supplements, or Medicare supplement insurance visit GoMedigap.com.