It's weird because that's completely different from what my dad said when I asked him about it last night, and he's had a lot of experience helping his own parents pay their medical costs.
Well your father is mistaken then.
Medicare Part A and B:
Part A: Hospital Insurance
Part A covers inpatient hospital stays (at least overnight), including semiprivate room, food, tests, and doctor's fees.
Part A covers brief stays for convalescence in a skilled nursing facility if certain criteria are met:
A preceding hospital stay must be at least three days, three midnights, not counting the discharge date.
The nursing home stay must be for something diagnosed during the hospital stay or for the main cause of hospital stay. For instance, a hospital stay for a broken hip and then a nursing home stay for physical therapy would not be covered.
If the patient is not receiving rehabilitation but has some other ailment that requires skilled nursing supervision then the nursing home stay would be covered.
The care being rendered by the nursing home must be skilled. Medicare part A does not pay for custodial, non-skilled, or long-term care activities, including activities of daily living (ADLs) such as personal hygiene, cooking, cleaning, etc.
The maximum length of stay that Medicare Part A will cover in a skilled nursing facility per ailment is 100 days. The first 20 days would be paid for in full by Medicare with the remaining 80 days requiring a co-payment (as of 2009, $133.50 per day). Many insurance companies have a provision for skilled nursing care in the policies they sell.
If a beneficiary uses some portion of their Part A benefit and then goes at least 60 days without receiving facility-based skilled services, the 100-day clock is reset and the person qualifies for a new 100-day benefit period.
Part B: Medical Insurance
Part B medical insurance helps pay for some services and products not covered by Part A, generally on an outpatient basis. Part B is optional and may be deferred if the beneficiary or their spouse is still actively working. There is a lifetime penalty (10% per year) imposed for not enrolling in Part B unless actively working.
Part B coverage includes physician and nursing services, x-rays, laboratory and diagnostic tests, influenza and pneumonia vaccinations, blood transfusions, renal dialysis, outpatient hospital procedures, limited ambulance transportation, immunosuppressive drugs for organ transplant recipients, chemotherapy, hormonal treatments such as Lupron, and other outpatient medical treatments administered in a doctor's office. Medication administration is covered under Part B only if it is administered by the physician during an office visit.
Part B also helps with durable medical equipment (DME), including canes, walkers, wheelchairs, and mobility scooters for those with mobility impairments. Prosthetic devices such as artificial limbs and breast prosthesis following mastectomy, as well as one pair of eyeglasses following cataract surgery, and oxygen for home use is also covered.[8]
Complex rules are used to manage the benefit, and advisories are periodically issued which describe coverage criteria. On the national level these advisories are issued by CMS, and are known as National Coverage Determinations (NCD). Local Coverage Determinations (LCD) only apply within the multi-state area managed by a specific regional Medicare Part B contractor, and Local Medical Review Policies (LMRP) were superseded by LCDs in 2003. Coverage information is also located in the CMS Internet-Only Manuals (IOM), the Code of Federal Regulations (CFR), the Social Security Act, and the Federal Register.
The reason why senior many times get Medicare supplements is not because Medicare coverage is any worse than private sector plans they previously would have had through their employer, but rather because they utilize medical care far more than they did when they were younger, and are on a fixed income, the copays and coinsurance is more of a financial burden on them than it would have been when they were younger and in better health. Thus they get a supplemental policy to assist paying that.
The problem with Medicare is not that its crappy insurance, its in fact great insurance, it has higher satisfaction rates among its recipients than any private sector insurance plan. The problem is that health care is getting so expensive and so many people are on it, some 42 million, that its future fiscal solvency is in question.