The annual election period for Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D plans began on October 15, and with more people working past age 65, you may run into some individuals who are trying to determine whether they should sign up for Medicare or stay on their employer-sponsored health plan. To help them make that decision, CMS has created a checklist-style “Fact Sheet” that you may want to share with them.

Nobody likes getting older. In fact, many of us dread our birthdays, reasoning that there’s nothing to look forward to after age 21. At 40 we’re “over the hill”; at 50 we get our invitation to join AARP; and at 62 we’re eligible for Social Security, which would be nice if it wasn’t also referred to as “Old-Age, Survivors, and Disability Insurance.”

It’s far from a done deal, but the $3.5 trillion reconciliation bill Democrats in Congress hope to pass could expand Medicare to include dental and vision coverage. As Fierce Healthcare explains, “an expansion of benefits for Medicare has been a longtime priority for Democrats and Schumer, who tweeted in June that the lack of those benefits leaves a ‘gaping hole’ in Medicare coverage.”

You probably know about the initial enrollment period for Medicare. It starts three months before your 65th birthday, includes your birthday month, and continues for three months after your birthday month. But did you know that you can actually sign up for premium-free Medicare Part A “any time during or after your Initial Enrollment Period starts” and that the coverage is backdated if you sign up after you turn 65? Here’s what the Medicare.gov website says:

As AHCP first reported nearly two years ago, the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services has been working to replace everyone’s Medicare card and assign them a new Medicare number, known as a Medicare Beneficiary Identifier (MBI). As of January 1, 2020, that process is complete and CMS will no longer process claims that are submitted with the old number.

As a reminder, Medicare supplement plan F is no longer an option for new Medicare enrollees. Anyone aging into or signing up for Medicare on or after January 1, 2020, will not be able to purchase a Plan F Medigap plan. Plan C is also being eliminated as an option for new enrollees.

A recent Boston Herald article describes the trouble that some seniors have paying for prescriptions in the Medicare coverage gap, commonly referred to as the “donut hole.” The article tells the story of Judith Pais, who ran out of her medication in November and had to wait until the new year to purchase her prescriptions because the cost of her medications had “skyrocketed” from $120 per month to more than $500 after she entered her Part D plan’s coverage gap.

The fourth quarter is a stressful time. Not only do brokers have to deal with the same year-end stuff as everyone else, like getting ready for the holidays, it’s also the busy time of the year in the insurance industry. And that’s true whether you sell group, individual, or Medicare products.

Back in 2007, three years before the Affordable Care Act was signed into law, Michael Moore released his film “Sicko” to highlight what he saw as the flaws in our for-profit healthcare system and advocate for a single-payer, Medicare-for-All solution in the United States. Moore was a supporter of H.R. 676, the Medicare-for-All bill introduced by Senator John Conyers (D-MI) that was picking up some steam at the time.

One of the problems in DC is that, instead of working together to develop a plan to fix our broken health care system, nearly everyone develops their own plan so that they can take credit for it. That certainly seems to be the case among the nearly two dozen Democrats running for President. Most, but not all, support some version of Medicare expansion, but those who do support the idea are far from being on the same page.