I'm two weeks away from a big birthday that I had been looking forward to for a single reason: Medicare. While my advancing age — 65 — is nothing I feel like celebrating, the promise of health care insurance relief, at the metaphorical 18-mile mark of life's marathon, had been motivation to keep putting one foot in front of the other. I helped care for my mom in her final years. Managing her finances, I couldn't help but notice that she didn't pay a dime for medical care. Through surgeries, hospitalizations and prescriptions, I don't think I ever saw a bill — only "explanations of benefits." It turned out Medicare alone wasn't covering her expenses. Her former job, as a secretary to the principal at my high school, came with supplemental medical and long-term care insurance. To the untrained eye, though, it seemed that the flimsy red, white and blue paper card she regularly fished out of her giant purse unlocked a superpower. Older and wiser now, I've come to learn: It's not that simple. In the months leading up to my April birthday, I started getting mailings from Medicare "navigators" — certified helpers who sent dense, multipage missives with charts and graphs that went straight into the recycling bin. Friends who had already been through it referenced the experience of signing up like shaken airline passengers deplaning after a turbulent flight. They were full of warnings about deadlines and penalties and choosing the right additional coverage to "fill the gaps." What "gaps"? I didn't like the sound of that. Following in the footsteps of two elders, I called Sandy Anderson of Medicare Northeast, a licensed independent consultant whose husband once co-owned the storied Burlington music venue Hunt's. Foolishly, I agreed to meet in her South Burlington office on a Tuesday afternoon, the day Seven Days goes to press and I'm normally glued to my computer. She started the lesson by explaining that Medicare is woefully out of date: The original plan does not accurately reflect longer lifespans, higher medical costs and pharmaceutical inventions. We'd be going over its four parts — A, B, C, D — as well as a dizzying number of "supplemental" insurance options. Anderson gave me a handout and was 30 minutes into explaining the details of the first column, "A," aka "hospitalization," when I started to sweat. I could see she had three more… ...read more read less