I’m on original Medicare with a supplement and a drug plan. Regarding care decisions, with original Medicare I can go to any provider that accepts Medicare without referrals. Regarding costs, my supplement has $0 deductible and picks up any excess Plan B charges. So for my NS RARP at Mayo Phoenix I paid $0 and never saw a bill. Under my drug plan I did have a small copay for my take home prescriptions at the Mayo pharmacy, but no charges for the drugs during my operation as they’re covered under Part B. But I do have my monthly Medicare Part B premium, my supplement monthly premium, and my drug plan monthly premium. As I understand it, the Medicare Advantage plans are “managed care”, so (generally speaking) the monthly premiums are much lower but there are copays for many services and (more important and concerning to me) they’re “managing” my care. And I believe most of them require referrals and limit you to their provider networks. Since you already have a high risk of needing additional care during your lifetime, if you can afford it you might want to consider going with original Medicare and a cadillac supplement (such as Medigap Plan G) and a good drug plan so you’re in control of what doctors you see and which treatments you select (within the limits of Medicare approved services). I’m no expert, but my understanding is that it’s usually pretty easy to later “downgrade” to a Medicare Advantage plan if you so decide. But if you go with either a cheaper Medigap plan or a Medicare Advantage plan, depending on the state you live in you might not be able to “upgrade” later without undergoing medical underwriting (which means the insurance company doesn’t have to accept you or can charge you a lot more). I’m not a medicare expert and I’m just sharing my opinion. You can learn a lot about your Medicare options and supplement plan prices at medicare.gov. Also you can search this website for "medicare" and you'll get a lot of hits. Best wishes.