# Medicare

13 Hacker News commenters recommended Medicare and 1 criticized it, November 2025 to November 2026. It was recommended in 6 of 13 months. It meets the Hacker Approved badge rule.

**Verdict:** People praise its low cost, national coverage, good care and reliable payments, though critics say it penalizes some people who fall outside its eligibility rules.

## Why people recommend it

- Cheaper and better than private plans (3 comments): "the monthly payment is about 1/4 of what I was paying for health insurance before I was eligible" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47848858)) "Medicare is a great deal, and you should take it if you can." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47851199)) "say it's better than the private insurance they had before" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47850536))
- Single-payer national program that works (3 comments): "the only viable solution in the US is a single payer insurance model" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47413231)) "It's a working national health programme." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46290571)) "thank heavens for Medicare and the PBS" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=46286716))
- Good care, including childbirth and checkups (2 comments): "Medicare delivered my child safely via C-section, and saw them through all their important health checkups after." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49754492)) "When I qualified for Medicare, the quality of care improved significantly." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47414877))
- Reliable payments and low admin costs (2 comments): "Medicare pays one tenth the administrative costs private health insurance does." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=49331465)) "Knowing that Medicare will reliably pay $X for code Y makes life vastly easier." ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=47416253))

## What people warn about

- Penalizes people who don't qualify (1 comments): "Luckily Washington has phenomenal Medicare. But it would be nice if I weren't punished" ([source](https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=50307405))

## Alternatives hackers recommend

- [Kaiser Permanente health insurance](https://hackerapproved.com/p/kaiser-permanente.md): 17 recommend
- [UnitedHealthcare health insurance](https://hackerapproved.com/p/unitedhealthcare.md): 5 recommend

## Cite as

Hacker Approved, "Medicare", https://hackerapproved.com/p/medicare/ (counts from 1,795,640 Hacker News comments, November 2025 to November 2026).