Medicare Decoded: Help That Doesn’t Sell You Anything (Everything They Should Have Told You at 64 ¾)

This book comes with a free companion podcast. To listen, tap "Read sample" under the cover image on the left and follow the link inside, or scan the QR code on the back cover.

Get one Medicare deadline wrong and you don't pay for it once. You pay every month, for the rest of your life. Miss your Part B enrollment window by two years and your premium climbs 20 percent, permanently. Assume your COBRA "counts" and you can eat a $54,000 bill, the way one reader did. At 65, a mistake nobody warned you about is not a one-time fee. It is a tax on the rest of your retirement.

Here is the part nobody says out loud: Medicare is confusing on purpose. A confused buyer is easier to sell to. Turning 65 is supposed to be the easy part of retirement. Instead it shows up looking like a tax audit, a four-letter acronym called IRMAA, and a seven-month enrollment window that slams shut while you are still figuring out what Part C even is.

Medicare Decoded is the plain-English, full-toolbox guide for people who want to make the right call the first time, without burning their weekends on government websites last redesigned during the Clinton administration. No insurance agent. No commission. No selling you anything. Written for the person who reads the fine print, and for the adult child trying to keep a parent from getting steamrolled.

Built evergreen on purpose. Every dollar figure was cross-checked against the CMS Federal Register. The 25 copy-paste AI prompts in Appendix B let you refresh next year's premiums, IRMAA brackets, deductibles, and penalties yourself in about sixty seconds each fall, even if you have never touched an AI tool in your life. Buy it once. Keep it current forever.

What is inside:

• Parts A, B, C, and D in plain English, no jargon walls

• Medigap vs Medicare Advantage, side by side, real numbers, no commission spin

• IRMAA, the income surcharge that quietly taxes Roth conversions, business sales, and inheritance years

• The Initial Enrollment Period and the penalty clock that starts the second you miss it

• Working past 65, plus COBRA, union, federal, VA, military, and HSA coordination

• A Medicare supplement (Medigap) buyer's guide, with scripts for the predatory sales calls you are already getting

• Caregiving, widowed, divorced, disability, chronic condition, dental, mental health, and travel coverage

• Part D drug coverage, appeals that actually win, Medicaid, Medicare Savings Programs, long-term care, and hospice

• Social Security and Medicare timing, a real first-year action plan, and the regrets to avoid

The Council of Eleven: before this went to print, every chapter was stress-tested by eleven real readers and advisors, new enrollees, caregivers, a CPA, a high-income IRMAA payer, a federal retiree, a self-employed late enroller, a widow, a disability enrollee, and a longtime Medicare SHIP counselor. Every gap they found got filled. That is why it runs 379 pages. Not by accident. By coverage.

Designed to be used, not shelved. It is 8.5 by 11 inches so it lays flat on your kitchen table, and built to be shared: read it, then hand it to your sister, your friend, your parents. No DRM. One purchase, however many readers.

If you are turning 65, helping someone who is, or working past 65 and trying to time it right, this is the Medicare guide that finally answers the questions straight.

Help that doesn't sell you anything.