The American Retirement Advisor

What the Letter Leaves Out, part 5. Dental, vision, and hearing are the extras people notice first, and the plan letter rarely shows their limits. On Medicare.gov, the dental flag read 'not specified' for every plan we pulled.

What the Letter Leaves Out, part 4. The plan letter can say the network changed. It cannot say whether your doctor left. And as of October 4, Medicare.gov still had no 2027 doctor information loaded for any of Maricopa's 52 standard Advantage plans.

What the Letter Leaves Out, part 3. The plan letter can list changes to the drug list. It cannot tell you what your own prescriptions will cost at your own pharmacy in 2027.

What the Letter Leaves Out, part 2. The plan letter lists an out-of-pocket maximum. It does not add up what a bad year costs you all in: the premium, Part B, the medical limit, and the drug cap.

What the Letter Leaves Out, part 1. The plan letter is supposed to show what changed, and this week we read one that did not show either deductible. For 2027, more Advantage plans in Maricopa have a medical deductible, and drug deductibles can reach $700.

Healthcare in Retirement. Since the 2027 plans went live on October 1, our team has pulled every plan in Scottsdale and Las Vegas to get ready for next week's client workshops. More deductibles, higher out-of-pocket limits, a $700 drug deductible cap, and what Medicare.

Take-Home Notes. What yesterday's Medicare workshops taught us. People holding their plan letter still had not caught that things were changing, Medicare.gov is not showing doctor matches for 2027 yet, and the numbers on the screen only help if you know what each one means.

Take-Home Notes, part 5. The workshop's last section sorts the room into three groups: not on Medicare yet, on an Advantage plan, or on a Supplement with a drug plan.

Take-Home Notes, part 4. This morning Medicare.gov switched to 2027 plans, and the workshop's live demo walks the search click by click.

Take-Home Notes, part 3. Plan letters are due today, and the workshop's calendar slide answers the next question: which Medicare window is yours, what you can change between October 15 and December 7, what happens if you do nothing, and the one change you can apply for any month

Take-Home Notes, part 2. Copay, deductible, network, and maximum out-of-pocket. The workshop defines these four before anything else, and each one is hiding in the plan letter on your counter.

Take-Home Notes, part 1. The workshop's opening section, in print. Medicare starts with one foundation, there are five ways to build on it, and most people end up on one of two paths. Plus why your mailbox is full: hundreds of companies sell the exact same Supplement plans.

Healthcare in Retirement. Eighteen tricky Medicare situations on one page, sorted by what is going on in your life: still working, served, a letter in the mail, a clock running, a surprise bill, two addresses, AI, and the phone.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 18. Your plan's Annual Notice of Change arrives by September 30, and an AI assistant is good at reading it with you. Here are five prompts to type in order, the privacy rule that comes first, and the three places no assistant can judge.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 17. Open Enrollment runs October 15 to December 7, and the calls come with it. Medicare says it will never call to sell you anything, and federal rules bar cold calls from plans and agents.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 16. At a company with fewer than 20 employees, Medicare pays first and the work plan pays second. That flips the Part B decision: skipping it risks bills the plan might not pay, not a penalty.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 15. A federal pilot called WISeR now runs prior authorization for a short list of services in Original Medicare in six states, Arizona among them, through 2031.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 14. An engineer's list. Some Medicare facts are not public yet, some are public but only county by county or state by state, and some exist only in your own file.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 13. It makes up sources. It gets things wrong. It argues. I hear all three from people who tried an AI assistant once or twice and put it down. Each complaint was true of the tool they were holding.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 12. Medicare Advantage is a county product. Leave the plan's service area for more than six months and the rules say the plan must drop you, with no replacement window waiting. Move for real and two doors open.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 11. Military retirees get coverage with no enrollment and no premium of its own, and it pays what Medicare leaves behind. In return for a career, that is right. But it rides on Part B, and Part B is the bill.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 10. You can sleep three nights in a hospital, in a gown, with a wristband, and be an outpatient the whole time. Then the rehab bill arrives.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 9. Medicare's own words: preferred pharmacies may save you money because they have agreed to charge less than other pharmacies in your plan's network. Same drug, same plan, two prices.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 8. Medicare's website calls the fall window Open Enrollment. The regulation calls it the annual coordinated election period. The industry calls it AEP. January has an Open Enrollment of its own, and the Marketplace has another.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 7. Every Advantage and drug plan follows the same government template for this letter, so I pulled the template.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 6. Two different letters are landing this month. One says your plan is changing. The other says your plan is going away. They carry different deadlines and different rights, and the most expensive mistake is treating the second one like the first.

Four real situations, thirty seconds each: a widow who found four accounts she never knew about, a man who sold his company and felt nothing, a couple whose plan is twenty-two years old, and three kids who will not agree. Plus Greg Frantz on thirty years of Medicare.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 5. Advantage plans let you switch every fall, no questions asked. Supplements do not. Nine in ten Advantage enrollees have no guaranteed right to buy one later.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 4. Healthy, no prescriptions, so why pay for a drug plan? Because the penalty for going without one is permanent, it grows every month you wait, and the window to fix it opens once a year.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 3. The VA is excellent at the VA. Outside it, you are on Original Medicare, which pays 80 percent with no ceiling.

Healthcare in Retirement, part 2. Keep the family plan at work, or move yourself to Medicare while your spouse waits a year?

The company hands you 18 months of COBRA on the way out and it feels generous. Medicare's 8-month clock started the month you left, COBRA usually costs more than Medicare would, and no, you do not get to keep both. An engineer shows his work.

My wife just started a new nursing job and picked her health plan in one evening from a list of three. At 65 it feels like three hundred, and the person down the hall who used to vet it for you is gone.

Our client care team has walked more than 2,000 clients through this year's enrollment check-in. Here is what happens to your answers next, and why the early birds sleep better in October.

Fiscal Fridays taped Friday with my dad and Greg Frantz, and for the first time Hayes Clement was fully in charge as director and producer. He was incredible. Here is what happened in the room, and how to make sure you are in it next time.

Save your seat at the October 2nd workshop: https://123easy.co/podIf you're coming to sit with us Friday, here's how to get the most out of the hour, what we'll actually cover, and what we won't do.

Save your seat at the October 2nd workshop: https://123easy.co/podThere are Medicare plans we help people with that pay us nothing, and the list gets longer every year. Here's why we've never been able to make ourselves stop.

600,000 members sounds enormous until you read the rest of it. Here's what the Humana Medicare Advantage reporting actually says, and what a calm person does with the letter.

A wave of Medicare Advantage non-renewal letters is about to land, and the headlines will scare people before the facts can catch up. Here's the calm version, and why we picked October 2nd to be in the room.

The thing that actually splits families isn't the money. It's a ring, a chair, a photo, and the feeling of being left out. Here is how you hand it all down without anyone stopping speaking.

Asking your parents about their estate feels like reaching for the inheritance. It isn't. It's making sure the plan they built still does what they wanted. Here are the words that open it gently.

The money you give while you are alive to watch it land is worth more than the same money left behind. Here is how to do it without stepping on the parents or spoiling the kids.

Your kids can already see the money is there. Telling them the plan while you’re alive is the only way to explain the why yourself, so nobody has to guess after you’re gone.

The hardest check to write is the one you can easily afford. Eddie and Betty talk through Ian Schaeffer’s piece on helping a struggling adult child with money without taking over their life: why silent giving and silent refusal both hurt, the reframe between replacing what a

When time gets short, money is the last thing anyone actually wants to talk about, and that is exactly why the conversation matters.

Most people who inherit an IRA think they have ten years to do whatever they want with it.

Ian takes us back to the library rooms where American Retirement Advisors ran its Medicare workshops for years: the Beach Boys over the speakers, David Edge calm on his phone until showtime, and a room that would sit nearly empty until it suddenly wasn’t.

Betty gets to say it herself. On Friday, October 2, Eddie and Betty are coming to the big screen for one day only, two showings, at two Valley libraries, alongside the advisors you have been reading all summer.

The two voices you have been listening to all summer said yes to something last week, and I promised them I would not spill it. Tomorrow morning, right here, Betty gets to tell you herself.

The last card on the fridge is the easiest one to misread. You do not prepare for a first meeting with an advisor; the meeting is where preparing happens.

The documents exist. The accounts exist. The passwords exist. Almost none of it lives in one place, and most of it lives in your memory.

The documents are signed. Nobody has told the kids what is in them. Day three of The Fridge List is the executor conversation: who to call, what to say, and why the kids are relieved by that call, not burdened by it.

The appointment is on the calendar, and the dread changes shape. What happens in that room? Day two of The Fridge List walks you into the first trust meeting: a conversation, not an exam, fewer decisions than you fear, and a cost you learn up front.

The card went up under a magnet so you would see it every day and call. That was years ago. 73 percent of Americans say estate planning matters to them, and 56 percent have not signed a single document. Day one of The Fridge List: the call is smaller than the dread.

A couple we work with gave their beneficiary planning box a name, and somewhere along the way, Bob became part of the family. This is a story about paperwork, which means it is really a story about love, new grandkids, and the kindest gift you can leave on a shelf.

You know the invitation. Heavy cardstock, a nice restaurant, a free dinner, and a presentation about an exciting financial opportunity. Go. Enjoy the steak. I mean that sincerely. Just bring the one question that turns the whole evening in your favor.

One of our clients sees more doctors than anyone I know, and every one of them is careful, thorough, and completely unaware of what the others are doing. His money worked the same way for thirty years.

Plenty of retirees are carrying a death benefit they forgot about, tucked inside an annuity, an old policy, or a benefit from a job they left years ago. Before you buy new life insurance, take an inventory.

Funeral insurance and a prepaid funeral are two answers to the same question, and plenty of people are quietly paying for both.

You would never take a new medication without checking what it does alongside the ones you already take. But most people buy annuities, life insurance, even funeral policies without asking the same question.

The finale of Seven Ways In, a seven-part series on how seven very different people arrived at the same program, and the one detail that decided each case.

Part six of Seven Ways In, a seven-part series on how seven very different people arrived at the same program, and the one detail that decided each case.

Part five of Seven Ways In, a seven-part series on how seven very different people arrived at the same program, and the one detail that decided each case.

Part four of Seven Ways In, a seven-part series on how seven very different people arrived at the same program, and the one detail that decided each case.

Part three of Seven Ways In, a seven-part series on how seven very different people arrived at the same program, and the one detail that decided each case.

Part two of Seven Ways In, a seven-part series on how seven very different people arrived at the same program, and the one detail that decided each case.

Part one of Seven Ways In, a seven-part series on how seven very different people arrived at the same program, and the one detail that decided each case.

Four things happened in the last ten days that change what your 2027 Medicare decision looks like. All of them are public. None of them were announced to you. Here is what came into our advisors’ inboxes this summer, and what it means for your family.

All week we followed a promise that took fifty-three years to win. Today, the two things about it that matter most to your family: a one-time enrollment window that does not repeat, and the one expense Medicare has never covered.

In the spring of 1966, roughly seven hundred federal workers fanned out across the country to inspect two thousand hospitals in three months. They were not checking the medicine.

On July 30, 1965, Lyndon Johnson did not sign Medicare in Washington. He flew to Independence, Missouri, walked into the Truman Library, and signed it in front of the man who had lost this fight twenty years earlier.

By 1965 there were three rival health bills in Congress, and two of them existed to make sure Medicare never happened.

In 1961, the campaign to stop Medicare did not run on television. It arrived in the mail as a vinyl record, addressed to doctors’ wives, with instructions to invite the neighbors over for coffee and play it. The man speaking on that record later became president.

In 1912, a former president put health insurance for the old and the sick on a national ballot. It did not become law until 1965. In between sits one of the longest arguments in American history, and a single phrase that kept winning it.

I am writing this from seat 27B. My daughter is next to me. My wife and my baby boy are somewhere else on this airplane, separated from each other, and I found out about all of it at the door.

Yesterday you learned the three tax buckets. Today, the playbook. Three specific strategies sophisticated planners run with permanent life insurance, including one that can defuse the tax bill your kids would otherwise inherit along with your IRA.

Two households, identical incomes, very different tax bills. The difference is not luck and it is not loopholes. It is which of three buckets each dollar comes out of. Part four of The Evolution of a Promise leaves the history books and lands in your kitchen.

Term, whole life, the policy your employer hands you, and a product born because the 1970s broke everything. None of them were invented to be sold. Each one was invented because a specific decade handed ordinary families a specific problem.

In the 1750s, London’s only life insurance society turned a man away for being too old. He happened to be one of the finest mathematicians in England, and what he did about it is the reason your premium is priced fairly today. Part two of The Evolution of a Promise.

June 18, 1583. A London salt merchant named William Gybbons becomes the first person in recorded history covered by a life insurance policy. Eleven months later he is dead, the underwriters refuse to pay, and a court has to decide whether the brand-new promise means anything.

Some mornings I catch myself wishing I were already retired. Then I remember what I get to see every week: hundreds of people living on the other side of that wish. Retirement is not a finish line.

A summer morning in Maine with my wife’s parents settled a question our advisors hear every week: when is the right time to retire? The answer is that there is no single right time. There is only the one you plan for, and then actually make happen.

The finale of our week on the receiving end of inheritance. After the IRA, the house, and the folder, one pattern is left standing: the inheritances that change lives are never the biggest ones. They are the planned ones.

Someday your family will open a folder. What they find inside is up to you. Day four of our series: the first thirty days from your kids’ side of the table, and the program we built at ARA so that month arrives organized instead of overwhelming.

Day three of our series from the heir’s side of the table. The quiet tax gift buried in an inherited home, the twenty-minute deed that skips the courthouse, why Arizona and Nevada families get an advantage most articles never mention, and the three-siblings-one-house problem

Your IRA statement says $900,000. Your kids will not inherit $900,000. Day two of our series sits in their chair for the one conversation that can change the number: the ten-year rule, their tax bracket, and the moves that only work while you are here.

You spent forty years building it. It will land in your kids’ lap during the most expensive decade of their lives. This week we sit in their chair, because the best inheritance plans are designed from the receiving end.

Part 2 of our weekend break from the serious stuff. A no-mayo roll at the end of a peninsula where they only take cash, a bench in Camden harbor where the masts sing, and a 3:30 AM alarm on Cadillac Mountain.

We spent all week on The Widow’s Penalty, and it was heavy for a reason. This weekend we are taking a break and doing something fun: a two-day road trip up the New England coast, one lobster roll at a time.

She started over from zero and built a seven-figure retirement on her own. Most survivors never need to do that, because most of what goes wrong in the year after a loss is preventable with a calm list and the right order.

Seven rental properties, one grieving widow, and no structure holding any of it. Part four of The Widow’s Penalty is about the handoff: the inherited IRA rules that changed for your children, the tax break Arizona and Nevada families get that most of the country does not, an

Two years after a loss, a letter from Social Security can raise a widow’s Medicare premium based on income from a life that no longer exists. There is a one-page form built for exactly this moment, and most people have never heard its name.

The sixties are when the widow’s penalty does most of its quiet work. A tax filing status with a two-year clock. A first April filing alone.

Losing a spouse in your fifties comes with a rulebook most people never open until they need it. Survivor benefits that cannot start until 60. A remarriage rule with a hard birthday attached. A ten-year wait for Medicare.

Give the kids the house now, or leave it to them later? The tax code treats those two acts completely differently, and the difference can be worth six figures.

Many sellers still believe there is a special capital gains break once you turn 65. There is not, and the rule that replaced it has not grown in almost thirty years while home values have.

Green, yellow, red. For years those three colors of money covered nearly everything. But for more retirees than ever, the biggest asset on the balance sheet is a house or a rental, and it plays by its own rules. Part one of a new three-part series.

The window, the conversions, IRMAA, the Social Security surprise: they all run on one number, your taxable income. Here is how to pull them into a single plan, and the one reason couples should not wait. The finale of The Gap Years.

Most retirees are surprised to learn their own Social Security can be taxed, and that up to 85 percent of the benefit can land in their taxable income. Here is how it works, and the new-law confusion to clear up. Part four of The Gap Years.

IRMAA is the Income-Related Monthly Adjustment Amount, a surcharge that raises your Medicare premium based on income from two years ago. Here is how it works, and how a smart year can quietly trigger it. Part three of The Gap Years.

During the gap years your tax bracket has room in it. A Roth conversion lets you fill that room on purpose, paying tax at today’s low rate instead of tomorrow’s forced one. Part two of The Gap Years.

The years between your last paycheck and age 73 are often the lowest-tax stretch you will ever see. Most retirees coast through and pay for it later. Part one of The Gap Years.

A policy on a young child or grandchild can lock in lifelong insurability and quietly build a pool the next generation can borrow against. Here is how the family bank works, and the honest catch. The finale of More Than a Death Benefit.

A life insurance policy you own is counted in your taxable estate, which can quietly add to the very tax bill you hoped to cover. A special kind of trust is the fix. Part six of More Than a Death Benefit.

When a large estate owes federal tax, the bill is due in cash within nine months, and the extension to file is not an extension to pay. Here is how life insurance keeps families from a fire sale. Part five of More Than a Death Benefit.

Most people retire with nearly all their savings in accounts the government still gets to tax. Life insurance can quietly build a third bucket that it does not. Part four of More Than a Death Benefit.

Almost 70 percent of people turning 65 will need long-term care, and Medicare will not cover most of it. Some life insurance can step in while you are still living. Part three of More Than a Death Benefit.

Some life insurance quietly builds a pool of money you can borrow against, tax-advantaged, for anything you want. Here is how cash value actually works, and the honest truth about whether it is worth it. Part two of More Than a Death Benefit.

A Father’s Day reflection on the most valuable thing my dad ever gave me, which was never going to show up on any account statement.

The honest answer is: it depends on the job you need it to do, and for some people it is no. Here is how to tell which side you are on. The first in our series, More Than a Death Benefit.

The worst time to assemble a coordinated team is in the middle of a crisis. The best time is now, while everything is calm. The finale of Both Ends of the Table.

Most wealth passes at death, when heirs are in their sixties and need it least. There is a strong case, and some surprisingly generous tax rules, for giving while you are here to see what it does. Part six of Both Ends of the Table.

When you already have enough, an inheritance is not really about security anymore. It is about purpose. Here is how to think about deploying a windfall when your plan is already full. Part five of Both Ends of the Table.