Australian Medicare Article
The Cost of Medicare – How Much Do You Owe?
There are various parts of medical treatment that you can be covered for if you have a Medicare plan. Medicare can be useful for people over sixty five and those who meet certain conditions, but at the same time it is not going to be available for free. There are some costs of Medicare that you should have to watch for. These include the monthly premiums that you will have to pay and deductibles that you will be responsible for.
Parts of the cost of Medicare can be paid for by FICA taxes. For Part A Medicare plans the premiums can be paid for if you or your partner has paid FICA taxes for forty quarters or more. Parts C and D of Medicare will not always have premiums to take care of, but that will depend based on what plan you are going to be using.
The cost of Medicare will start with the premium that you will have to pay each month. For Part A, which involves hospital insurance, the monthly premium is based on how many quarters you or your partner have paid in FICA taxes. As of January 2007 the monthly premium for Part A of Medicare for those who have paid between thirty to thirty nine quarters of FICA taxes in their job will only be $226. Those who have less than thirty quarters of FICA taxes handled will have to pay $410 a month for their premium.
Medicare Plan B, which is for medical insurance, will require everyone who is involved to pay a monthly premium. Specific insurance premiums make use the cost of Medicare Plan B in terms of what premiums are needed. The standard rate for 2007 is $93.50 each month. Rates can be higher if you have more income every year though.
The next part of the cost of Medicare involves deductibles. This is needed for the person to pay the costs of services that are not covered by Medicare. For Part A the cost of the deductible is $992 for a hospital stay of less than sixty days. For Part B an annual $131 deductible is needed.
The co-pays are the last part of the cost of Medicare. This is where you will have to pay for parts of health care services. A co-pay of $248 per day is needed for a hospital stay of sixty one to ninety dollars under Part A of Medicare. The cost per day will increase when you have to stay in a hospital for a longer period of time.
For Medicare Part B the cost of Medicare co-pays will be a percentage of the services that are needed. All services that Medicare Part B covers will require a twenty percent co-pay from the person who uses it.
The cost of Medicare can be expensive at times, but if you have medical concerns that require great amounts of care then the cost of Medicare will certainly be worth it.