They started showing up, uninvited, in my driveway several weeks ago now.
It’s always two people, a driver and a passenger, in a four-door sedan.
Usually two men, but sometimes a man and a woman, dressed in wrinkle-resistant office-wear, loafers and a smile that stops just below their cheekbones.
“You’re about to enter your window!” is their universal opening line.
These people sell insurance and I’m about to qualify for Medicare.
“And I’m closing my door now,” I call out, and then follow through on my promise.
Which makes one of us.
No one is here to sell me on Medicare, the government program for people over 65, that pays for some hospital and other healthcare expenses.
They’re here to sell me on something called “Medicare Advantage,” private insurance that I can choose instead of the government-run program, that (if you believe the television commercials) promises the moon and more.
The government pays private insurance companies to administer your Medicare benefits for you.
Sunset bicycle rides with fit and attractive friends. Tai chi lessons in public parks. Fresh-squeezed orange juice and frittata at an outdoor breakfast table. There were a half a million of these ads airing across the country last year — 8,000 a day.
All I have to do is chose a corporation over the government, and I’ll be golden, in my golden years.
Quick question: Do you buy health insurance from a traveling salesperson while standing in your driveway? Yeah, me neither.
But somehow, this has become of the state of American healthcare in 2026.
A few of my friends entered their “window” a few years before I did, chose a Medicare Advantage plan, and now those plans are closing up shop because the corporate bean counters decided those plans just didn’t make their companies enough money.
My friends are scrambling now, looking for other plans they can afford and that cover their health needs.
On the other side of the issue are the activists and political candidates in favor of “Medicare for all” — making the government health plan available to everyone regardless of age, and seem to be under the impression Medicare is free for the consumer. Not true.
Medicare isn’t one plan, its two, parts A (hospital care) and B (other stuff but not your eyes, ears, teeth, or prescriptions). Part B runs about $200 a month and covers 80 of some of your medical costs, with no cap on that mysterious 20 percent.
The best explanation I’ve heard yet about this ridiculous system came not from an insurance person, a news reporter, or a doctor but … a comedian.
“The whole argument was that this would expand choice and companies would do a better job at controlling costs than the government,” Jon Oliver said on his show, “This Week Tonight.” “And look, some things are better when private companies are involved. Like, say novelty slippers … but sadly, the private sector hasn’t done as well with Medicare as it has with slippers.”
A report last year said Medicare Advantage, over the past 18 years, has actually cost the government an extra $591 billion.
If those driveway bandits were selling slippers, I might have bought a pair. My feet are always cold.
For the rest of me, I’m sticking with the original and crossing my fingers.