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Medicare Advantage disenrollment
If you wish to leave your Medicare Advantage plan and sign up for Original Medicare, you can do so during the Medicare Advantage Disenrollment Period. The disenrollment period runs from Jan. 1 to Feb. 14 each year. As Original Medicare does not cover prescription drugs, you also have until Feb. 14 to join a prescription drug plan.
Disability and long-term care: What’s next?
Howard Gleckman, one of the nation’s leading experts on family caregiving and long-term care and author of Caring for our Parents, talks with Harold Pollack about the nation’s looming national disability crisis.
ACA’s CLASS Act pushed over the fiscal cliff
CLASS was designed to complement private long-term care insurance, Medicare, Medicaid, and public disability programs. For Medicare recipients living in their own homes, CLASS would cover important services no one else would cover.
2012 Medicare open enrollment update
After 40 years of existence Medicare, should be getting easier to understand. Unfortunately, government programs become more complex, not easier. Changes are always afoot with the nation’s largest medical insurer, now more than ever and particularly in regard to Medicare Advantage enrollment and the rules associated with changing plans. First, to enroll in a Medicare [...]
Medicare: know your limits and your doctor
Whether you are enrolled in a Medicare Advantage plan, only basic Medicare, or Medicare with a supplement (or gap) plan, there are aspects of Medicare that are hidden and can bite you hard if you don’t pay attention.
What seniors should expect from ACOs
Dr. Linda Bergthold has been a health care consultant and researcher for over 25 years. She worked on the Clinton Health Reform plan and was the head of the Obama health care blog team in 2008. She also writes for The Huffington Post on health reform and insurance issues. The arrival of the New Year [...]
Medicare open enrollment period deadline
Dr. Linda Bergthold has been a health care consultant and researcher for over 25 years. She worked on the Clinton Health Reform plan and was the head of the Obama health care blog team in 2008. She also writes for Huffington Post on health reform and insurance issues. Unless you live in a remote Alaskan village, if [...]
It’s a mad, mad Medicare system: Part 5
The following is the fifth report from Guest Contributor Glenn Tornell, who’s investigating the “mad, mad, mad, mad Medicare system” as a prospective enrollee and then – with any luck – a beneficiary. His fourth report on Medicare is here. Or read the entire series starting with Part 1. Want the skinny on Medicare Advantage [...]
It’s a mad, mad Medicare system: Part 4
Here’s a perfect gift for a 65th birthday: a paper shredder. Before you hit that magical Medicare age, you’ll be subjected to a tsunami of birthday greetings from some of your best buddies in the insurance industry. They know where you live and they want your business. Assuming you know the basics of Medicare Part [...]
Medicare out-of-pocket costs
Overall, out-of-pockets costs have grown steadily for the average Medicare recipient over the years. Medicare spending as a percentage of a person’s income has risen from 11.8 percent in 1998 to 16.2 percent in 2006.
It’s a mad, mad Medicare system: Part 3
It’s kind of a wishy-washy legal area. And I suppose my friend Tracy could have been subjected to waterboarding by the FDA, technically. But she’d have to get in line. More than a million Americans each year buy their prescription medications online through Canadian pharmacies.
Dirty little secret:
Medicare is already privatized
It’s a dirty little secret that’s right out in the open: The GOP has already privatized Medicare for more than one out of four recipients. They did it back in 2003 through the Medicare Modernization Act, legislation that sharply increased payments to Medicare Advantage plans.
Eric Cantor comes clean
But the voucher-deep social Darwinism that Cantor’s party prescribes is an ugly future in which to live. It’s a future where if you are a retiree of modest means, and your number comes up in the cancer lottery, you likely die. I don’t offer that as hyperbole.
It’s a mad, mad, Medicare system: Part 2
Despite my delight in trashing most federal programs (unless they benefit me, of course), the bottom line, in my opinion: Medicare is spectacular deal for seniors, and …
Even the Tea Party loves Medicare
Rep. Paul Ryan (R-Wisc.) and his House GOP brethern are throwing a party, and no one is coming – not even the usually reliable folks who prefer to party with tea.
Updated: Who voted to kill Medicare?
The good news is that Ryan’s plan doesn’t appear likely to become law. The Democratic-controlled Senate and President Obama stand in its way. But the vote itself provides a stark …
GOP pulls the plug on Grandma
Get ready to meet more grandmas and grandpas (or maybe great-grandmas and great-grandpas) at the drive-thru asking, “Would you like fries with that?” as they struggle to pay for increased health care costs.
It’s a mad, mad, mad, Medicare system
After a lifetime of ignoring just about everything surrounding Medicare except puzzling over those mysterious FICA taxes that came out of my regular paychecks, I’ve started to take a peek into what some cynics might call the heart of that darkness: Federalized medicine. Okay, that’s a bit dramatic. But so are the circumstances.
‘Obamacare’ puts $1 billion back in seniors’ pockets with even more relief coming
The prescription drug donut hole is closing. On the one year anniversary of ‘Obamacare’, government health reforms have already put nearly a billion dollars back in the pockets of cash-strapped seniors, according to a new report on healthcare.gov. Since July, 3.8 million seniors whose drug expenditures pushed them into the donut hole have received a one-time rebate [...]
Privatizing Medicare: less care, more cost
I was thinking today about a conversation I had with a health insurance executive last year. We both have kids in college, and I remarked to him that the Obama Administration had removed private lenders from student loans, saving both students and the government money. He surprised me by agreeing with me, adding that “kids’ [...]
Medicare’s Most Wanted
He’s no John Walsh, but U.S. Health and Human Services Inspector General Daniel R. Levinson has put out his own “Most Wanted” list of people scamming the Medicare system. Medicare fraud has an annual cost of between $60 to $90 BILLION. Yes, that’s billion with a “B.” Three Miami Brothers top the Ten Most Wanted list. [...]
Wrong cure for Medicare home health care
Dissuading beneficiaries from using the benefit seems to us like punishing the victim. A $150 copayment adds insult to injury for folks who already have accepted Medicare’s limits on in-home health visits.
GOP death panels now open in Arizona
During last year’s health reform debate, opponents of reform set up a straw man called “death panels” to turn people against reform. They raised the false specter of faceless government penny pinchers pulling the plug on Grandma to save a few bucks. Their furor was over a provision for end-of-life counseling that was all about [...]
health reform and Medicare in 2011
While opponents of reform have done plenty to confuse beneficiaries about the effects of reform on Medicare – and in particular the way they might affect Medicare Advantage – there’s nothing confusing about the fact that the law mandates insurers to cover 45 preventive services, including preventive services for seniors.
shortage of geriatric doctors
Part of the problem is Congress’ reluctance to find a permanent fix to the Medicare doctor-reimbursement formulas. It just provided another quick fix to prevent a 23 percent cut in doctors fees for 2011, but will need to apply another bandage next December to extend it again. It’s hard to attract doctors to commit to a career in senior care when its future is so fragile.
are you really ready to enroll in Medicare?
Most folks are confused by all of the health insurance options. But as confusing as that is it doesn’t – in our opinion – hold a candle to the dizzying, mind-boggling maze that is the Medicare system.
medicare open enrollment season starts
During the annual Medicare open enrollment period, it’s always prudent of seniors to take a look at their existing Medicare coverage and make sure they’re getting exactly the coverage they need.
health reform squeezes donut hole
Many seniors will get a nice surprise in 2011 – the donut hole in prescription drug coverage left in place during a previous round of Medicare tinkering is starting to be filled in by this year’s historic health care reform.
data shows some physicians implementing their own medicare reimbursement ‘fix’
When it comes to physicians and the way they’re reimbursed by Medicare, there’s plenty to debate – even among physicians.
new $2,000 Medicare deductible?
Republican senate hopeful Rand Paul, speaking on FOX News Sunday, suggested that in the near future, seniors should pick up of the first $2,000 of medical expenses that are currently paid for by Medicare. It was no off-the-cuff remark – Paul’s opponent has released a video showing him advancing this idea before a number of [...]
bad medicine: phony seniors group launders drug money in mediScare campaign
Our headline is sensational – just like the television ad which inspires this post. But while the commercial is full of distortions and outright lies, our headline is merely pithy. The sponsor of the ad is a group called The 60 Plus Association, which describes itself as a “non-partisan seniors advocacy group” but which a [...]
