I have questions about Medicare

[Cleita]

11. Part A is the only part that a 65+ y/o senior gets that there is no premium to pay.

It's the hospitalization part and doesn't cover routine office visits to a doctor. When you enroll in Part B (doctor's visits) or Part D(prescription drugs), premiums are deducted from your social security. You do have co-pays on the latter two so many of us buy supplemental insurance to cover what Medicare doesn't.

Medicare Part C are the Medicare Advantage programs where you sign your Medicare rights off to a private insurance or HMO company. The benefits and co-pays vary with the company like regular insurance. They can't deny you coverage, but they do limit the doctors you can see and other restrictions. There are some chronic diseases they won't cover like end stage renal disease. Mostly I find they are crap because providers don't want to accept them. Even when you get a list of providers, the providers usually tell you that they have stopped accepting new patients, however, when you go back on traditional Medicare, they suddenly are accepting new patients.