Look beyond premium costs when choosing a Medicare plan

Making decisions about Medicare coverage has never been easy. Over the years the task has become more complicated as congress has moved to privatize the system.

Open enrollment, the time for evaluating coverage and making changes, opens Oct. 15 and runs through Dec. 7 this year. This is the first of two columns that address decisions people about to become eligible for Medicare and those already on the program will have to make.

While some 57 million people are still in traditional Medicare, which remains a social insurance program, the number of beneficiaries in privatized Medicare known as M...