I Want Out: I signed both myself and my wife up for SS online before we turned 62. It was a snap. I figured that at some point we'd be contacted by SS to come to the office to show them that we were alive and it was us, but that never happened. Later, at a senior health fair, I asked a SS rep there how come nobody verified what I'd done online. How do they know it's legit? "Oh, we have ways," she said.

I'm also concerned about what the Republicans might do to SS and us, its recipients. But I'm more worried that federal retired annuitants will become an easy target. With the skills they have at propagandizing, they could make federal retirement plans the root all the nation's budget woes and really do us, and our financial security, great harm.

Part A is hospitalization. It's provided with no premium cost because of the Medicare premiums you paid while working. There's no reason not to accept it.

Part D is prescription drug coverage. Your BCBS FEHBP most likely provides you with adequate drug coverage so there's no reason to get involved in this. There's a penalty for not signing up for it timely, like if you later drop your FEHBP, but that's waived if you had adequate coverage already through the FEHBP before eventually sign up.

Part B is where you need to make a choice. If you think you don't need it because you have FEHBP, you have to act to avoid being signed up automatically. The problem with this decision is that if you don't sign up when you're supposed to, there's a substantial penalty added to the premium cost whenever you do sign up for it later that lasts for the rest of your life.

If you do sign up for it, it's currently $99.90/mo, but it also means that you may have little or no out-of-pocket medical expenses for the rest of your life. In my case, we have APWUHP Consumer Driven, and if I understand the rules correctly, whatever Medicare doesn't pay the provider, APWUHP pays the rest and I shouldn't have to pay anything more, ever. I don't know if that's true throughout FEHBP or if it's just the terms of my plan.

I handled my wife's automatic sign-up for Medicare Part B last year and I'll be signing up for it as well this year (we both began drawing our SS at age 62). Our total health plan premiums will be to $4800/yr but those should be the only health care costs we'll be subject to. Considering that I've read that today's 65 year old can expect to spend a quarter million dollars on health care before he dies, I think the cost of the the premiums I'm paying for double coverage will be less expensive that having only one coverage, whether it's Medicare B or FEHBP.