What is Medicare?

If you’re turning 65, Medicare is the health insurance you’re about to be enrolled in — or about to have to choose. It comes in parts, and the letters matter less than what each one does. Here they are, one at a time.

Part A — hospital coverage

Part A helps pay for hospital stays, skilled nursing care after a hospital stay, hospice, and some home health care. Most people don’t pay a monthly premium for Part A, because they already paid for it through Medicare taxes during their working years. If you or your spouse worked and paid those taxes for about ten years, Part A is premium-free.

It is not free of all costs — there are deductibles and daily charges for longer stays — but the monthly premium question, for most people, is settled.

Part B — medical coverage

Part B covers the medicine that happens outside a hospital bed: doctor visits, outpatient care, lab work, preventive services, medical equipment. Unlike Part A, almost everyone pays a monthly premium for Part B. The standard premium is $202.90 per month in 2026, and the annual deductible is $283 in 2026. People with higher incomes pay more.

Part B is also where the most expensive mistake lives: if you don’t sign up when you’re supposed to and don’t have other coverage that counts, you pay a late penalty — and that penalty is permanent. The details are on the enrollment periods page.

Part C — Medicare Advantage

Part C is a different way to receive your Medicare. Instead of the federal government paying your claims directly, a private insurance company bundles Part A and Part B — and usually drug coverage — into one plan. Advantage plans often have low monthly premiums, and many include coverage that Original Medicare doesn’t. In exchange, they generally have networks: lists of doctors and hospitals the plan works with.

Whether that trade is right for you depends on your doctors, your prescriptions, and how you use care. That’s exactly the twenty-minute conversation I have on the phone.

Part D — drug coverage

Part D helps pay for prescription drugs. Like Advantage plans, Part D plans are run by private companies, and each one has its own list of covered drugs. Part D also has its own late enrollment penalty if you go without drug coverage — smaller than the Part B penalty, but it also follows you.

Medicare Supplement — the other path

A Medicare Supplement plan (also called Medigap) is not a lettered part of Medicare. It’s private insurance that works alongside Original Medicare, helping pay the deductibles and coinsurance that Parts A and B leave behind. With a Supplement, you can generally see any doctor in the country who accepts Medicare — there’s no network.

New York handles Supplement plans differently than almost every other state, in a way that favors you. There’s a question about it on the FAQ page.