My wife and I are retired and have Medicare through an insurance company. Medicare gets paid from our Social Security so the private insurance co. is getting paid by SS funds which is money we contributed to the program over the years of working.
We keep getting hit up for “free” bonus services that claim to be through our insurance co. and are for preventative health issues. This is as bad as the TV ads to “ask your doctor” about meds for ailments you’ve never heard of.
The scams get worse. Best I can tell they apparently no longer state on the SS tax form how much is going to medicare. Are these companies somehow supplying “giveaways” at our expense without us even knowing it?
Here’s a couple examples. My insurance; Wellcare (Healthnet) has in the past sent us boxes of vegetables I never asked for which I complained about since we didn’t need them. I told them to stop and give them to people that could actually use them.
Now my wife and I are getting credit cards called “Spendables” that are good for $96 each, per quarter for OTC supplies. They are working with Walmart with an online shopping service that takes these cards but can also be used in stores as well but only for the products they allow. (Here’s their PDF catalog):
content.solutran.com/…
Wow you might say! $96 (X 2) every 3 months for what we maybe only spend half that in “real life”? (a possible inflation reducer maybe?) And not to waste free products, we try to fill the cart as close to the max as possible. But who’s really paying for this anyway?
Here’s the catch. Since it’s nearly impossible to use exactly the full total, who is getting the already purchased left-over amount? If it’s the insurance company, and say they have 100k members all getting this service and all of them leave a dollar on the card when it expires (no roll-over BTW) then “someone” is raking in $100K every 3 months! How about if many of the members don’t use the card at all? Afterall, it is prepaid. It’s kind of like the unused gift-card windfall to companies we’ve heard about.
Tell me if I’m wrong. I’d like to complain but to who? If the insurance companies are billing Medicare for it then they won’t care as that would be medicare’s loss and they profit. That’s money that could be reduced from the insurance cost we pay and given back to us members.
The more of this type fraud that is allowed to exist via “capitalism” gives the other side ammo that the system is at fault. We’re already subject to all the competition between insurance companies wanting our business which in itself is privatization. I guess that’s not enough profit for the fat cats so corrupt financial companies keep figuring out ways to rob us of our SS money via “free” giveaways in the name of health-care. Sad…..