Expert advice to navigate UCare and Medicare changes while buying health insurance
Go Deeper.
Create an account or log in to save stories.
Like this?
Thanks for liking this story! We have added it to a list of your favorite stories.
Minnesota seniors have a little less than three weeks to find and enroll in a Medicare health plan, and there's a lot of chaos in the marketplace right now.
Minnesota-based UCare is going out of business. There are questions about federal Affordable Care Act subsidies and credits. Choice is abundant. And the system itself is complicated to navigate.
Kelli Jo Greiner, Medicare product manager for the Minnesota Board on Aging, joined MPR News host Cathy Wurzer with advice on choosing insurance.
“The perfect storm has really hit us this year when it comes to Medicare and all the changes that are happening,” Greiner said.
Turn Up Your Support
MPR News helps you turn down the noise and build shared understanding. Turn up your support for this public resource and keep trusted journalism accessible to all.
The following transcript has been lightly edited for clarity and length. Listen to the conversation by clicking the player button.
How busy have your staff been in answering insurance questions from Minnesota seniors?
The Minnesota Aging Pathways, which used to be Senior Linkage Line, has been incredibly busy this year. We have never seen call volume like this before. In fact, it's been so high that we actually have contracted with another entity to help us answer calls, and that has really helped us out tremendously to not have such long wait times.
What are the main questions that folks have?
The main questions that we’re getting this year are about changes to the UCare system. All of the UCare Medicare Advantage plans are ending as of January 1, and the roughly 158,000 Minnesotans who are enrolled in those plans have to make a plan change before December 7, in most situations, to have coverage on January 1.
Some plans are pulling out of a number of counties around Minnesota, primarily rural counties, and so people are having to make plan changes there as well.
And then, of course, Medicare premiums are going to be in the deductibles for 2026, and they're going up substantially.
Is it worse in rural areas than in urban areas?
Yes, it is. The rural areas have fewer options to choose from, which some people may think is a good thing. But because people have to find a plan that will cover their providers and their drugs and their pharmacy, it becomes more difficult when you have fewer plan options that are going to meet all of your needs.
What questions should folks ask when talking to an insurance company or broker?
The first question that people need to figure out is, how much can they afford per month to pay a premium?
We have plans in Minnesota that are premium-free, but the trade-off is that they may have larger co-pays and deductibles, and so people need to really look at the structure of the plan and how much it's going to cost them.
And then the second thing that they need to find out is, do their providers participate in the plan that they are looking at, and will their prescription drugs be covered?
It is so important that people have that whole comprehensive coverage of medical coverage and drug coverage for 2026, and we are seeing a lot of challenges with that as well.
I think the other thing, if people are dealing with brokers and agents, is to really have an honest talk with them [and ask] “what really are the best options are for me?”. At Minnesota Aging Pathways, we cannot recommend one plan over another. We provide people with the information, but the decision basically has to be their own, whereas agents can get much more into what would be the best specific plan for me out of what I'm looking at.
Regarding misinformation and scams, what can seniors look out for?
One of the things that is happening, unfortunately, is that unscrupulous people out there are actually enrolling people in plans that they have not chosen to enroll in.
And so the first thing we tell people is, if you get a phone call and somebody is asking for your personal information in any way, shape or form, don't even engage them in a conversation. Hang up the phone. If you're getting emails that just are not making sense and are again asking for your personal information, click off that, don't respond to it.
And the best thing that you can do in terms of advice about how to handle these situations is to not respond at all. If you give them a segue into giving them any kind of information, it is amazing how they can take that little grain of information and run with it, and next thing you know, you're a victim of a scam or a fraudulent action. So we really want people to know that we need to all be fighting fraud, scams and abuse out there, because there are many of them.
