United Healthcare Supplemental Insurance Rates

[redstatebluegirl]

Does anyone else have United Healthcare Supplemental Medicare Insurance? I am having problems finding out how much the premiums will increase in 2026. I have called numerous times and they keep saying "they aren't sure". Now I am having issues getting a human, it is all AI. I really really hate AI. I am terrified it is going to be a large increase that they are hiding somehow until my next payment is due and then it will be to late to look for other coverage.

BTW I hate the Orange menace too, this is all his fault, he has let these people rob us blind.

[ariadne0614]

1. Can't help you with United HC, but fwiw

. . .my Mutual of Omaha Plan G supplemental went from $363 to $399. They sent me written notice back in September or October.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

12. I'm still at $160 through USAA

For Plan G (in Nevada). They raised it by about $4 this past August. No word from them yet on any increase in 2026.

[GoodRaisin]

15. My Mutual of Omaha Plan G went from $251 to $305.

It was $108 when I originally signed up 8 years ago.

[ariadne0614]

16. It's partially determined by the state you reside in.

Before signing up, my research explained that although the coverage in each MediGap plan is identical, the prices and quality of customer service vary. Customer service is important to me, so I didn’t opt for the lowest price. Mine started at ~$135 in Arizona when I joined in 2013. It went up when I moved to Wisconsin, and increased again when I moved to Florida.

My fervent hope was that Medicare For All would replace profit-driven healthcare before I die. Silly me. This latest jump was quite a shock, and I blame the decaying *Rump regime. If they can’t end Medicare entirely, I fear they’re trying to force everyone into a so-called “Advantage” plan.

[NewHendoLib]

2. Seems the fees are still in progress for various companies.

I don't know my revised fees from BCBS for my wife and I for 2026 yet

[LuckyCharms]

3. About a 25% increase in a BCBS traditional, non-medicare advantage, non-supplemental plan.

I would plan on at least that much of an increase. possibly more. Possibly much more.

I'm hearing numbers that are all over the place, so it's very hard to predict.

[Bluetus]

4. It is time for Medicare to offer a Supplemental tier at actual cost

Last edited Mon Dec 29, 2025, 08:12 PM - Edit history (1)

This is not hard (at least conceptually. There are many IT details, but it is very doable.)

The supplemental insurance for real Medicare has very specific requirements that all policies must provide. Why should we pay for the overhead, profits, and bloated exec salaries when this could be added to Medicare?

Just to be clear, I am not talking about changing Parts A or B. I am only talking about a public option for Medigap, and that would not cost taxpayers a penny. The coverage would be priced at cost for the customer's age cohort. And I bet this would be half the cost of what we have to pay to outfits like UHC and BCBS.

[Ms. Toad]

7. A first step is just education - you are choosing a supplement plan for life.

Do the research. All supplement plans, in essence, pay what the government tells them to pay. A very educated colleague of mine didn't like the (non-Medicare) reputation of the insurance company - so he chose to enroll in a plan that was clearly before more expensive.

Before I enrolled, I tracked the historical COLA, and the annual age-related increased and plotted out the lifetime costs for each plan. The AARP plan was the cheapest by about 50% from the next closest plan. Most were double or triple - for the exact same benefits. The COLA isn't fixed at the time you enroll - but history is a decent predictor - and by that time I had My parents' 25-year history with the same plan (still the cheapest).

[Bluetus]

8. It is not always "for life"

Last edited Mon Dec 29, 2025, 11:50 PM - Edit history (1)

but that is often the result. If you switch policies after your initial 6 months, you may be subject to underwriting (i.e. "I see you had a nosebleed at age 15, so we'll have to charge you extra for that pre-existing condition." ) However, that is illegal in some states (all of them "blue", no surprise there.) In those states, you can switch policies or companies at open enrollment time with no medical underwriting. That ought to be the law in every state, but it would become a moot point if we would simply offer a public Medigap option that had no medical underwriting at annual open enrollment time.

[Ms. Toad]

9. The states in which you can switch (outside of the first 6 months) are very few.

You can generally switch if you have a supplement and move from one state to another. You can do a try-it with Medicare Advantage either when you first enroll or later if you have an existing supplement plan for a year and switch back. In many states companies are required to charge based on medical underwriting. I'm actually only specifically aware of one state which allows a later switch, and it requires enrolling in a specific Medicare Advantage plan when you first enroll.

So, for most people, it is a once in a lifetime choice - and ought to be made with the same gravity that any other once-in-a-lifetime choice is made. Far too many people are unaware of this until it is too late.

The point of the medical underwriting is to keep the costs down - to avoid people buying in only once their personal costs become too high to sustain. Ultimately, a supplement plan is still an insurance plan - and if people are allowed to buy in only when they need it, the plan will be unaffordable. That is true whether there is a public option or not. A public option will be just as unaffordable if people are permitted to buy in only once their medical costs become unsustainable - because the price will be not just age-based, but also based on the medical conditions of those who choose to buy in. So if only sick people buy in, the price goes up.

I agree the system would work better without an insurance middleman, but to keep it affordable it would still need similar restrictions (or penalties) based on late buy-ins.

And, it goes without saying, we could avoid all of this if we had universal health care.

[Bluetus]

11. I get what you are saying, but I don't trust any HC corporation to not screw me at every opportunity

I really don't understand what "research" you are suggesting to predict exactly WHEN the company will decide to jack up the rates above the competition, knowing that we don't want to risk an underwriting.

That underwriting trap should be illegal in every state. That was one of the major benefits of the ACA and nobody on real Medicare should ever face an underwriting trap.

[Ms. Toad]

14. You can't determine everything, since the COLA is tied to unpredictable increases in prices - BUT

That is one of two increases. All plans have COLA increases. The future isn't predictable - BUT - if you check with your state SHIP, they can give you the historical COLAs for each plan back around 5 years (going by memory here). And chances are the relative amount of

The second increase each plan has are the age-related changes. You need to research, in advance, what those changes are for the plans available to you. Some (very few) have none - since that type of plan fixes the premium (outside of COLAs) throughout the life of the plan. That means you pay more at the beginning than plans tied to age, and less later in life. These plans will look overly expensive at the outset, but because the basic premium stays steady over time the better they look as you age.

Nearly all have annual changes tied to age. They go by a bunch of sometimes misleading names - but the general idea is that your premium is lower when you start and grows over time at a rate fixed by contract. It may grow every year until you die, it may grow for a period of years. Mine grows from age 68-85 (2%/year from 68-79, then 3% a year to age 85), After that the age-related changes remain fixed for the remainder of my life. The only increase I'll have after that is the annual COLA.

I plotted out my lifetime premiums, using the plan-specific COLAs over the past 5 years (or however many years I could get), and the contracted age-related increases. You can refine it by looking at your personal health and family health and making a guess as to how long you'll live. (My parents are still living at 94; my maternal grandmother lived to 101 - so there's a good chance I'll live at least into my 90s; my spouse's parents died in their 60s - so chances are she won't live quite that long). So I made my best guess as to how long we would be paying premiums and plotted each plan available out to a guestimate of our age at death. The clear winner was the AARP plan - over the lifetimes I guessed, it was the cheapest by around 50% compared to the next cheapest. (And, as additional confirmation, we were able to look at the choices my parents made - which confirmed that not only for the past 5 years - but for the past 25 years it was the most stable and cheapest plan.

There aren't any guarantees it will remain the cheapest - but without a crystal ball, it's the best you can do.

The underwriting trap, as you call it, isn't really a trap. It is a necessary part of keeping rates lower - in the same way mandating insurance for everyone was a necessary part of keeping ACA rates lower (and a significant part of why rates have jumped). In an insurance-based system, anytime people are allowed to skip insurance when they are healthy but join once they are sick, the rates for everyone go up.

In addition, because of the variation in how insurance plans take age into account allowing changes after enrollment would make gaming the system possible. For example - a company which offers the same premium for the life of the plan has to over-charge younger individuals and under-charge older individuals. Just for the sake of a concrete example, let's say the premiums are $150/month no matter how old you are. My plan, on the other hand, starts out cheaper and increases as I age. (When my premium was around $100/month, the same plan for my father was about $200/month - solely because of the age-related differences in premiums.) So if I were permitted to change plans, I'd sign up for the plan I'm currently on until the premium jumped to $150, then I would switch to the $150 fixed rate plan - taking the benefit of the age-related discount of my plan AND the front-loading on the other plan which shifted some of the costs of aging to the younger individuals. In other words the plans spread out the cost of aging differently, so you can't just jump from one plan to another without upsetting the economic basis of the plans.

It's also baked into the plan you choose (A, D, B, G, K, L, M, N). We wrestled with the choice between D and G (one covers office visits, the other has a copay; and excess charges (not permitted in our state, but permitted in a state where I might need medical care). As to the office visits - my spouse has enough office visits a year that the premium difference was less than she was guaranteed to pay in office visits. I was borderline - not a clear winner. BUT - I have an aggressive cancer which might require treatment in cancer. Ohio (where we live) prohibits providers from tacking on 15% excess charges for providers who do not accept Medicare assignment. Texas allows such providers to charge up to 15% in excess fees. My spouse probably won't need that coverage - but I do.

It's not as bit of a difference - but currently I'm NED (no evidence of disease) and don't need the protection from excess charges My Ohio premiums are lower than other states because there is no risk of having to cover not only the 20% Medicare remainder but an additional 15%. If I were allowed to choose plan D when I enrolled (and was already NED) - and then switch to plan G - when I learned the cancer had come back and I needed treatment in Texas - I'm again being permitted to buy insurance (in this case up to 15% more in fees) when I need it - and that always increases premiums.

As long as we have an insurance-based system (even if there is a public option for insurance), the only way to make premiums affordable is to ensure people can't just take advantage of paying premiums when the premium is cheaper than the benefits.

I prefer a non-insurance-based plan (universal health care of some sort). But we're not there yet as a country.

[Bluetus]

17. I appreciate your information, but here is where we disagree:

"The underwriting trap, as you call it, isn't really a trap. It is a necessary part of keeping rates lower "

IOW, if they screw enough people, they can lower rates for other people.

That is not insurance, and certainly is not how HEALTH CARE should work. OK, if you are selling car insurance, there is a reasonable argument for charging a high rate if I get a bunch of speeding tickets. That is a problem of my own making. If I get Parkinsons, or have a stroke, you are saying I should pay more to provide lower rates for those who had better luck? That is just wrong, and I don't think we are going to agree on that.

There should be no underwriting -- EVER. If private insurance companies can't deal with that, then let's go with an entirely public system.

[NameAlreadyTaken]

13. Agree completely

[redstatebluegirl]

5. Thanks everyone.

I think I will budget for 30 percent increase. I feel blessed that we can still absorb that, so many cannot....

[Ms. Toad]

6. It will depend on the plan you purchased, and on where you are in losing your purchase discount.

Both of ours went up 24%. I don't have the breakdown between the COLA and the declining discount.

We both have the same plan (G, no silver sneakers - we signed up the first year in which there was not an option for silver sneakers; now it isn't offered with any of their supplement plans. The enrollment discount in the plan we purchased ran over a different age range, and weren't the same percentage as generally available plans. I'd have to dig through my electronic files to sort out how much of the increase is the drop in enrollment discount, and how much is COLA. )

[RussBLib]

10. we have the UHC/AARP supplemental

Have had that one since we first got onto Medicare back in 2019. At that time, the cost for both of us was $225 total. This year, it is up to $390, again for both of us. They don't typically change rates on the 1st of the year: they do it mid-year, seemingly whenever they feel like it. All in all, we are satisfied with it. Never have had to call them for any reason. They pick up every dollar that Medicare does not. Have not had an "extra" bill in years.