It is indeed confusing. Here's a quick tutorial: 1. Medicaid is for low-income people and is a true single-payer system. 2. Medicare is for retired and disabled people and makes you pay premiums and copays: if you're too poor, there's a Medicaid *supplement* program that will help.
3. Health Insurance Marketplace, the Obama contribution, is private insurance you can buy online if your employer doesn't pay for health insurance, and it's pretty good, especially for low-income but not really poor people. When my son the bartender turned 26 and got kicked off my employer policy...
...I told him I thought he could get an Obamacare policy but didn't try to help him beyond advice; it took him a year (luckily he's been incredibly healthy) but he did it. The GOP bill may make it unaffordable by cutting the subsidy, but I don't know yet.
4. Medicare Advantage is a way for private insurers to suck money out of the Medicare program, a supplemental policy that may pay for some things where Medicare is unhelpful, but a lot of people don't think it's worthwhile.
The subsidies are the disaster no one's talking about . Heavy subsidies for people working but not making much. Here in Maine, less than $100/mo for a silver plan. (Still deductibles, etc. but you're buying preventative/routine stuff...
Do you have a theory why they're not talking about it? It's only just occurred to me what a big deal it is, not a subject I've been spending a lot of time on in recent years, but Chris Murphy or whoever has to be aware.
There's a lot of moving parts and we live in a soundbite age... www.cnbc.com/2025/05/23/b...
....and a pretty hard cap on the size of the hole something major can blow in your budget.)