depends on your situation.
Medicare Part A covers hospitalizations. Part B covers doctors. If you want any additional coverage, including prescription coverage, eye or dental, you need a Medigap or an Advantage Plan.
It takes some time, but research on the internet and you should be able to figure out what you need. I just recently quit work and got my Medicare Part B coverage and went straight to an Advantage Plan with Humana. I have the good fortune to be very healthy, and I only take a diuretic for high blood pressure. And with my Advantage Plan, my co-pay went from $10 per refill to $4. Nice. And if I'm willing to get three months at a time through some mail order thing, I'll have no co-pay at all.
My Humana plan costs me nothing beyond the fee Medicare collects for Part B.
A friend of mine has a different Humana plan which allows her to see more doctors and she takes more prescriptions. A year and a half ago when she had a pulmonary embolism, she spent about two weeks in hospital and only paid a few hundred dollars out of pocket. She's told me the amount and I can't quite remember, but it was astonishingly low considering she was in Intensive Care for the first week. Human also sent a nurse to her home at least once to make sure everything was as it should be.
Different companies have different plans in different parts of the country, but the Medicare website is very useful. It is important to remember that if you relocate to some other city, state, or part of the country, you may need to switch plans.
= new reply since forum marked as read