Why we show up for plans we don't get paid on.
September 3, 2026
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Show Notes
Eddie and Betty's Conversation
Welcome back to The American Retirement Advisor. I'm Betty, and Eddie is here with me in the studio today, as always. Eddie, I want to get right into this because I read something this week that genuinely stopped me in my tracks. It was a piece written by Ian Schaeffer, the COO over at American Retirement Advisors, and it opens with what he calls a confession. And when a company's COO sits down and writes a public confession, I think that's worth paying attention to.
It caught me off guard too. You don't usually see that kind of writing from a company leader. It wasn't polished corporate language. It read more like someone who needed to say something out loud.
So let me just set the table for listeners. The piece is about Medicare, it's about October, it's about what this company has decided to do differently this year. But it starts somewhere much more personal than any of that. It starts with Ian talking about his father.
Right. His dad, David, has been in this business for twenty-five years. And Ian writes about growing up watching his father sit with families at his office. Not in a grand way, just the image of a man across a desk from people who are worried and a little embarrassed to be worried.
That detail is the one that got me. He says the ones who came in were careful, they'd worked their whole lives, and yet this one topic made them feel like they'd missed a class everyone else took. I think so many of our listeners know that feeling.
It's one of the more honest descriptions of what Medicare enrollment actually feels like for people. You've done everything right your whole life, you've saved, you've planned, and then this system shows up and it's dense and it changes every year and the commercials are everywhere and none of it quite adds up. Feeling lost in that moment doesn't mean you weren't paying attention. It means the system is genuinely complicated.
And Ian's point about his father is that what those families needed wasn't just a plan. It was the feeling of walking out standing up straight. I love that image. Walking out standing up straight.
And he's very clear that you don't get paid for that part. That's the line that I think explains everything that follows in the piece.
Okay, so walk me into the confession part then. Because it's one thing to talk about a company's values, it's another to say we drifted from them.
So here's what Ian actually writes. He says there are Medicare plans that they help people with that pay them nothing. Not a reduced amount. Nothing. And every year, as the plans and rules reshuffle, that list of zero-commission plans gets a little longer. And he's upfront that by the logic of a normal business, the answer is obvious: stop helping with those, redirect those people somewhere else, spend the hour on something that pays.
And most businesses would do exactly that. That's not cynicism, that's just how most operations work.
He acknowledges that. He says they've never been able to make themselves do it. But then he also admits that for a stretch, they drifted. They got busy, they got bigger, and the help they never charged for quietly became the help that waited. That's a hard thing to say in public about your own company.
It is. And what strikes me about it is that he didn't have to say it. He could have just announced the new events and framed it all positively. But he chose to name the drift.
I think he named it because the fix is public. He literally uses that word. The fix is public and it starts this month. So if you're going to announce something publicly, you might as well own what came before it.
So what is the fix? What are they actually doing?
They're going back into libraries. And Ian is very specific about why he says libraries and not, say, a hotel ballroom with a steak dinner and a sign-up sheet. He draws that contrast deliberately. A library is a public room, middle of the day, anyone can walk in, on Medicare or not, their client or not. Nothing owed, nothing sold.
I've been to those hotel events. We've both seen them. And I understand why people go, there's a free meal and the presenter is usually knowledgeable. But there is a weight to that room. You feel like you're supposed to do something by the end of the evening.
There's a transaction expected, even if nobody says it out loud. And Ian's pushing back on that whole format. A library is neutral ground. It carries no obligation.
And they're doing this in October specifically, not just because that's when they got around to it.
That timing is very deliberate. This is Medicare Annual Enrollment season. It's when the letters arrive, it's when the TV commercials start running constantly, it's when people are making decisions. And Ian's point is that it's exactly when people are most likely to make a rushed choice out of fear, which makes it exactly when a quiet, honest hour is worth the most.
Can we just sit with the commercials thing for a second? Because I think people who are new to Medicare don't always realize what October looks like on television if you're sixty-five or older.
It's a lot. The ads are loud, they're urgent, they often lead with benefits that sound almost too good, and the goal of every one of them is to get you to pick up the phone right now. And some of those ads are entirely legitimate. But the cumulative effect of all of them together, on someone who's already a little confused about the system, is a kind of low-grade panic.
And Ian actually names that. He says seniors need an honest hour more than ever this year, not less, precisely because so much of the noise around them is being paid to alarm them. That's a strong sentence.
It is, because it acknowledges something that doesn't get said enough. That urgency is not accidental. There's money behind it. And that doesn't mean every company or every ad is acting in bad faith, but it does mean the person sitting at home watching all of it needs to be able to separate the noise from the signal.
So the library workshop is meant to be that for people.
That's how Ian frames it. A place where you can hear the truth about the year ahead with nothing owed and nothing sold. And he's clear that some of the people who come will be on plans the company earns nothing from. Some will never become clients. He says they know that going in and they're coming anyway.
You know what I keep thinking about? The person who almost doesn't go. Who sees the event, thinks maybe, and then talks themselves out of it because they assume there has to be a catch.
That's probably most people's first instinct. We've all been conditioned to think a free event has a pitch attached. And honestly, sometimes it does. Which is why I think Ian naming the business reality so openly is strategic as well as genuine. He's essentially saying here is what we earn and here is what we don't, so you know exactly what room you're walking into.
Let's talk about the actual details for listeners who want to go. Because there are two events on the same day.
Friday, October 2nd. Two locations. The first is Foothills Library in Glendale, and that one starts at ten thirty in the morning. The second is Mustang Library in Scottsdale, and that one is at two thirty in the afternoon. Both are at no cost to you. If you want to register ahead of time or get more information, the website is 123easymedicare.com/oct-workshop, or you can call the number in the article, which is eight seven seven, two two zero, ten eighty-nine.
And I want to make sure listeners hear this: this is not a government event. Ian is explicit about it in the piece. This is presented by 123EasyMedicare, which is a brand of American Retirement Advisors. It's an independent, private organization. Not affiliated with Medicare, not affiliated with CMS, not affiliated with Social Security or any government agency. The libraries are hosting the space but they're not sponsors of the event. It's educational.
Which actually matters, because one of the things that confuses people in October is figuring out which sources of information are official government sources and which are private. They look similar on the surface sometimes. Being upfront about that distinction is the right thing to do.
So who should be thinking about going to one of these? Is this only for people actively choosing a Medicare plan right now?
That open-door idea really does mean what it says. Ian's not drawing a narrower circle anywhere in the fine print. So if you're approaching sixty-five and you're trying to understand what's coming, that's you. If you've been on Medicare for a few years and you're wondering whether your current plan still makes sense, that's you. If you have a parent who's navigating this and you want to understand enough to help them ask the right questions, that's also you.
The adult children piece is so underrated. I talk to people all the time who are trying to help a parent through Medicare decisions and they feel just as lost as the parent does.
Because the system doesn't exactly come with a user guide. And it changes. Plans that worked well last year might look different this year, costs shift, coverage shifts. Part of what makes October so stressful is that even if you made a great decision twelve months ago, you might need to look at it again.
Is that something the workshop would cover? Like, here's what changed this year and here's what to look at?
That phrase Ian uses really does capture the whole spirit of it. I'd encourage anyone planning to attend to write down their specific questions ahead of time, because a session like that goes fast and the things that are most relevant to you personally are going to be particular to your situation. The advisors there would know the specifics, but having your questions ready means you get the most out of the hour.
That's good advice for any educational event really. Go in with your list.
Exactly. And don't be embarrassed by the questions on the list. That's Ian's whole point from the start of the piece. The people who walked into his father's office felt embarrassed, and his father's job was to make sure they walked out not feeling that way anymore.
Let me ask you something that I think listeners might be wondering quietly. When a company says we help people on plans that pay us nothing, do you take that at face value? Like, is there a version of that which is still marketing?
That's a fair question and I think the honest answer is that the proof is in the practice. Ian is making a public statement about what they do, and he's inviting people who will never become clients to show up. That's an accountability mechanism. If you come to the event and you feel like you're being sold to rather than educated, you'll know. But the fact that he's naming the zero-commission plans specifically, and framing the library events explicitly as for everyone regardless of whether they become clients, at least tells you what the stated intention is.
And I think the framing of the whole piece supports it. He's not writing a promotional piece, he's writing something closer to a reckoning. The language about drifting, about not being proud of a period in the company's history, that doesn't read like marketing copy.
It reads like someone who wanted to say something true before the busy season started. And given that October is when everything accelerates, putting something like this out at the beginning of October rather than just letting the season happen to you is a deliberate choice.
There's a line near the end of the piece that I think is the heart of the whole thing. Ian writes that the measure of this firm was never who paid them. It was who walked out standing up straight.
That's the line that ties everything together. The origin story with his father, the confession about drifting, the decision to go back to libraries, all of it is in service of that one idea. The measure isn't the revenue. It's the person leaving the room feeling like they understand something they didn't understand when they walked in.
And I think that's what most of our listeners are actually looking for. Not necessarily someone to hand them a plan, but someone to sit with them and make the thing make sense.
Which is harder to find than it should be. Especially in October, when the louder voices are all trying to get you to act fast.
So if you're in the Phoenix area and you've been putting off really understanding your Medicare situation, this seems like a low-pressure way to spend an hour. October 2nd, Foothills Library in Glendale has a morning session, or if that side of town doesn't work for you, Mustang Library in Scottsdale has an afternoon option later in the day. At no cost to you. You can register at 123easymedicare.com/oct-workshop, or if you'd rather just pick up the phone, that number Eddie mentioned a moment ago is right there in the article waiting for you.
And if you're not in the area, or if October 2nd doesn't work, the bigger takeaway from Ian's piece is that this kind of conversation, a real one without a pitch attached, is what you should be looking for from any advisor you sit down with. If the room feels like it's moving toward a close, that's worth noticing.
The questions you have about your Medicare coverage deserve a real answer from someone who knows the specifics of your situation. And the advisors at American Retirement Advisors can do that. Whether you start with the workshop or you just pick up the phone, getting that honest hour on your calendar before the enrollment season gets loud is the move.
Don't make a rushed decision in November that you spend twelve months second-guessing. The window to sort this out thoughtfully is right now, while October is still early.
Thank you so much for spending this time with us today. Whatever you're navigating with Medicare, whether it's brand new to you or you've been in it for years and something just doesn't feel quite right, you deserve to walk out of that conversation standing up straight. Go find the people who can make that happen. We'll see you on the next one.
If you want to sit with us and hear this in person, save your seat at our no-cost Medicare workshop on October second. The link's in the show notes, or just go to one-two-three-easy dot co, slash P-O-D.