LETTER TO THE EDITOR: Medicare letter was a bit misleading

I switched to Medicare because of the high cost and low coverage of the employer plan at GE, and I did a lot of comparisons with other private plans as well. I submit that Medicare is working very well for all of us, using the following limited but representative set of numbers.

For coverage similar to Medicare, Priority Health would charge $440 per month for a single person in the 60- to 64-year-old range. This is with a $1,000 deductible. Medicare looks better now, doesn’t it? — even with a premium of $247 per month in 2014 (which I cannot substantiate by the way). 

Or let’s try the GE employee plan, to cover me in addition to my wife and son, added $175 per month to the basic premium for my wife and son, which was about $150 per month. But, the family deductible was $4,000 and the total out of pocket was $14,000 before much payment by the insurance to cover bills.

Perhaps the previous writer should do his own research into the private alternative to Medicare to put it into perspective; the preceding are only two examples, there are many more where private pay just doesn’t make the grade in either cost or coverage.

— Michael R. Cramer, Grand Haven