North Dakota Insurance Commissioner Adam Hamm warned consumers that phone scammers are calling Medicare beneficiaries in North Dakota about Part D penalties. Reportedly, phone scammers have called Medicare beneficiaries, saying the beneficiary owes a penalty for not having Part D (prescription drug) coverage. The scam refers to the penalty that is...

 The health of U.S. citizens is being ignored, according to Rawle Andrews Jr., AARP Maryland interim senior director.   But the AARP is taking a stand, Andrews said, alongside Lee Hammond, AARP board president and a Maryland resident, from the MAC Inc. senior center on Wednesday. "I don't think there is any doubt the American health ...

As People Work Longer, They Risk Penalties for Missing Deadlines By ANNE TERGESEN, WALL STREET JOURNAL Rules for enrolling in Medicare are complex. But when people postpone retirement past age 65, as many people are doing these days, it's easy to get caught up in red tape. Older adults can't get into Medicare any time they want. The ea...

By MATT SEDENSKY, Associated Press Writer The first box that arrived at Shirley Shupp's door was filled with braces to help with her arthritis. Then came a motorized scooter, just like the one the 69-year-old already owned. She hadn't asked for any of it — but Medicare was apparently footing the bill. "There was just something that wasn't ri...

 Doughnut hole must be eliminated As a senior citizen who also is licensed Pennsylvania insurance agent specializing in senior health insurance programs, I can personally attest to the need to terminate the doughnut hole concept. This concept has been flawed from the very beginning, in that it terminates drug coverage when it is most nee...

As the open enrollment period continues for those without or wishing to change their Medicare Part D prescription drug plans, scammers are at it again, making telephone calls to elderly people in town and trying to obtain credit card or bank account information. The open enrollment period ends Dec. 31, 2009. Swansea Council on Aging Executive...

On July 31, Mike West fell into the infamous doughnut hole of Medicare prescription coverage. Instead of paying $40 a month for his prescription medication, his out-of-pocket costs suddenly ballooned to $400 a month. To get by, he did what Medicare recipients all over the country report doing: He cut back on his medication. "I just take less," he...

Esther Notrica dreads this time of year when she must review dozens of  Medicare prescription drug plans to figure out which one works best for her.   "It's very complicated," said Notrica, a 74-year-old Buckhead retiree, who takes 12  medications daily for  high blood pressure, diabetes and arthritis, among other ailments. ...

Open Enrollment for Prescription Drug Plan Gives Seniors More Choices With enrollment open for Medicare’s prescription drug insurance plan between now and the end of the year, many seniors have questions.     “I don’t even know about Plan D,” said Joan Newcomer, a 73-year-old Silver Creek resident who has been on Medicare for nea...

Medicare maxes people out Source: Hartford Advocate The other day an elderly woman fell into a donut hole right before my eyes. I was standing in line at the drugstore, waiting for a prescription. The customers ahead of me were a diminutive woman leaning precariously on a cane — the quintessential little old lady — and her late-middle-aged daug...

  Kaiser Health News (12/1, Galewitz) reports, "Seniors have until the end of the year to switch Medicare drug plans to get a better deal. But many will pass up the chance to save hundreds of dollars a year in prescription costs." According to Kaiser, this is because, "with dozens of drug plans on the market, many seniors get overwhelm...

Shopping around for best Part D could save money By Guy Boulton of the Journal Sentinel       The average monthly premium for a Medicare prescription drug plan will increase 11% next year - and it has increased 50% nationally since 2006. Those figures make clear why shopping for the best Medicare Part D plan shoul...

By Shelia M. Poole The Atlanta Journal-Constitution Esther Notrica dreads this time of year when she must review dozens of Medicare prescription drug plans to figure out which one works best for her.   “It’s very complicated,” said Notrica, a 74-year-old Buckhead retiree, who takes 12 medications daily for high blood pressure, d...

Source: New York Times Editorial The drug industry has been ramping up its prices in advance of any health care reforms that might clamp down on its profits. The industry’s rapid price escalation over the past year threatens to make a mockery of its deal with the Senate Finance Committee and the Obama administration to contribute $80 billion over ...

Seniors are likely to see Medicare insurance costs rise, benefits fall  Review options during enrollment, experts advise For next year, 67-year-old Anna Nickerson plans to stick with a HealthSpring private Medicare plan for medical and prescription drug coverage, preferring to ignore a heated marketing battle as rival health plan...

By Debra Pressey Prices are going up on Medicare Part D prescription drug plans next year, so enrollees are being advised to shop around as open enrollment begins next week. "I don't think anybody is going to see their cost go down," says Cheryl Matheis, AARP's senior vice president for health strategy. Oftentimes people who feel they'r...

The Wall Street Journal (11/16, Zhang) reports that the average premiums Medicare beneficiaries will pay for stand-alone drug plans will increase 11% to $38.94 per month in 2010, according to the nonprofit Kaiser Family Foundation. Individuals receiving drug coverage through Medicare Advantage plans will see even more changes, and their averag...

 Monthly premiums for stand-alone Medicare prescription drug plans (PDPs), which are part of Medicare Part D, will rise an average of 11 percent to $38.94, according to a report by the Henry J. Kaiser Family Foundation. This means that since 2006, the first year that Medicare Part D drug benefits were offered to seniors, the cost has risen by ...

 An analysis by the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare shows that health care reform proposals, which allow Medicare to negotiate the lowest drug prices for beneficiaries in Part D, would save $24 billion each year. That savings would be more than enough to close the Part D coverage gap known as the "doughnut...

For the first time since annual automatic cost of living adjustments (COLA) were established for Social Security and supplemental security income in 1975, there will not be an increase next year.  Raises in Social Security and SSI are attached to inflation. To determine the COLA, the third quarter inflation rate is compared to the one the y...

Here is some advice for seniors who may fall into the dreaded donut hole in Medicare Part D. Recently my wife fell into that hole. Two of her drugs for the next month went from $60 a month to over $600. These are life-saving drugs.  I finally convinced her to go online and check out the possibility of getting those drugs from Canada. It is ...

Next year is looking like a tough one for seniors. They will be forced to bear increases in premiums for Medicare Part D and Medicare Advantage in the upcoming year. Seniors will have a 45-day window from Nov. 15 until Dec. 31 to decide if they want to switch plans or stay with the program where they are currently enrolled. Medicare Part D prem...

The report that seniors won’t get a cost of living adjustment increase in their Social Security checks next year won’t be viewed as good news by many retirees, especially for those whose main source of retirement income are those checks.  But the law is the law, and the federal government bases the adjustments on inflation, which has declin...

Seniors get an opportunity to shop around for new prescription drug coverage once a year and can potentially switch into a lower cost plan. Each state will have 39 or more prescription drug plans to choose from in 2010, each with different prices and coverage options. In Florida, for example, monthly premiums will range from $19.80 to $100.40 next ...

Senior citizens may feel like they are being nickle-and-dimed each year on the cost of their prescription drugs. The alternative is to shop around for a different Medicare Part D plan. Information on prices and plans for 2010 for prescription drug coverage is available and premiums are going up an average of 11 percent for people enrolled in stan...

 Many seniors will see their Social Security check go down because their Medicare Part D (prescription plans) and their Medicare Part C (also known as Medicare Advantage) plans are expected to go up in cost. Since Social Security is not expected to provide a cost of living increase (COLA) this year for the first time in 25 years...

Q: I enrolled in a Medicare Part D drug plan last year. My co-payments have been reasonable until the other day. I went to the drugstore and was told I had to pay full price for my medicines. The pharmacist told me I was in the gap. I never heard of such a thing. What do I do? A: It is unfortunate that you had to learn about the Part D g...

Monthly Medicare drug premiums to rise 11 percent in 2010 for current stand-alone plans Monthly premiums for Medicare Part D stand-alone prescription drug plans will rise 11 percent on average to $38.85 in 2010 if beneficiaries stay in their current plans, according to the Kaiser Family Foundation. An analysis of the 2010 Part D prescription dr...

An amendment approved in the early hours of Friday allows changes that could lead to higher Medicare prescription drug premiums. Senator Chuck Grassley said that early Friday morning, during final hours of work on health care reform legislation, the Senate Finance Committee agreed to changes that are bad for seniors, veterans and workers. Grass...

Source: Kiplingers Brace yourself for no increase in your Social Security check next year. And some seniors’ checks may even shrink. For the first time since annual cost-of-living adjustments became automatic nearly 35 years ago, seniors will not get a raise in their Social Security benefits in 2010. And unless Congress steps in, some beneficiari...

Source: Associated Press Medicare is looking like a big fat piggy bank for health care overhaul. President Barack Obama and the Democrats want to pay for much of their plan to cover the uninsured by cutting hundreds of billions from the Medicare budget over the next 10 years. From its inception, the health plan for seniors has been kept afloat...

One of the most vexing problems I have faced in the past few years are issues arising from the failure of insurers to meet my needs. It seems like the insurance companies are putting profits before people; it's taking a devastating toll on the health of all people, but especially seniors and the disabled.  I happen to be both. For the past ...

If the health-care reform bill under consideration in the House of Representatives becomes law, seniors will pay Medicare prescription drug program premiums that are 20-percent higher than they would be under current law, says the Congressional Budget Office.   The increase in premiums will start with an average 5-percent hike in 2011 and re...

The American Psychiatric Association (APA) has announced that a study featured in the September issue of Psychiatric Services, an APA journal, has found that patients with mental illness with problems obtaining medications through Medicare Part D are more likely to visit a psychiatric emergency department. According to an APA's press release, t...

By MARK MILLER Many of the protesters showing up at this month's town hall meetings on health care reform are old enough to be on Medicare-or they're pretty close. They're also old enough to know better; here we have beneficiaries of a gigantic, successful federal health insurance program screaming at their legislators to keep the government ou...

Source: The Windsor Star A very large number of people die every day around the world because they don't have access to affordable medicines. The reason for that, the big drug companies' monopoly over medicines they got patented. Canada did pass a law in 2004 to allow less expensive generic medicine versions being exported to developing countries...

By Frank Frisch I found out the hard way recently that I was not well-informed regarding the infamous Medicare “doughnut hole.” When I went to pick up my medications at a local pharmacy, I was told that one of my monthly medications — and normally co-pay $28 with my insurance — was going to cost me $268.99. I have a heart condition and, quite fra...

Source: Kaiser Health NewsCBO Chief Douglas Elmendorf’s post on his Director’s Blog outlining how changes to Medicare Part D would raise premiums but cut beneficiaries prescription costs triggered a round of news stories, and blog chatter.Jacob Goldstein writing for the WSJ’s Health Blog, noted that the Medicare drug program’s infamous doughnut hol...

Source: Washington Post OpinionChuck Blahous's framing of the COLA conversation was a few ticks off the mark ["What Drop in Benefits?," op-ed, Aug. 24]. It is not a flap or a controversy. It is simply an unprecedented event in the history of Social Security cost-of-living adjustments. The fact is that 2010 will mark the first year since COLA increa...

During its brief four-year history, Medicare's Part D program, designed to subsidize the cost of prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries, has been the subject of much debate. On one side, proponents have touted the plan's ability to expand access to prescription drugs to seniors; on the other, critics have long questioned its design and user-...

Health care legislation drafted by the House of Representatives would boost senior citizens' prescription drug-coverage premiums an average of 20 percent by 2019, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said Friday.However, seniors' overall spending on drugs would decrease, according to the CBO report.The CBO said the premium costs would increa...

by JERRY REMMERSIf you thought seniors fighting phantom cuts in their Medicare benefits at those town hall meetings were angry, wait until the first of the year when it dawns on all of them they’re getting no cost of living increase for the next two years. In fact, six million of Social Security’s 50 million recipients will suffer a pay cut and all...

By STEPHEN OHLEMACHERMillions of older people face shrinking Social Security checks next year, the first time in a generation that payments would not rise. The trustees who oversee Social Security are projecting there won't be a cost of living adjustment (COLA) for the next two years. That hasn't happened since automatic increases were adopted in 1...

By Joshua Zumbrun, Forbes.comEvery January, Social Security payments are normally raised as part of a routine cost of living adjustment. But with inflation all but missing, come January 2010, retirees are unlikely to see bigger checks. In fact, the trustees of Social Security reportedly think that inflation may remain so low that there will be no i...

Most Medicare beneficiaries won’t pay higher premiums for Part B medical insurance coverage next year. Under current law, Part B premiums cannot rise faster than Social Security annual cost-of-living increases. And the Congressional Budget Office predicts there will be no cost-of-living increases for Social Security recipients in 2010 and 2011. But...

By Mark AmbinderI've been trying to peel back some of the spin layers and figure out whether there really was a secret deal to between the White House and PhRMA that would have perpetually protected drug makers from the rapacious reach of Congressional Democrats. The notion that an iron-clad, inked deal existed is a convenient bit of history for th...

CONGRESS’ PLAN MEANS MEDICARE ‘DOUGHNUT HOLE’ MIGHT REMAIN UNTIL 2021By Bob GrahamIFAwebnews.comThe so-called doughnut hole that many Medicare Part D beneficiaries are finding themselves in with prescription drug coverage isn’t going to disappear for at least 12 years under a current proposal in the U.S. House of Representatives.Most of today’s 65-...

Right now the new House Bill would phase out the dreaded senior drug expense in 2023, 14 long years from now.The Medicare Rights CenterYour Weekly Medicare Consumer Advocacy UpdateJuly 23, 2009 Medicare's Part D drug benefit has a built-in gap in coverage known as the "doughnut hole," when coverage stops and consumers must pay the full cost for the...

Seniors will see a slight hike in their prescription drug plan premiums next year, according to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).Seniors will pay an average of $30 a month -- $2 more than this year -- for their Part D premiums, based on bids submitted by insurers to CMS, the agency said.CMS also noted that about 800,000 of the 1...

Nancy Wittebort is 77, takes six medications each day and didn't want to "tolerate" the hours-long hassle of figuring out which prescription-drug plan would get her the best deal. The letter informing her that the monthly cost of her plan was going up about 60 percent Jan. 1 left her no choice. "I thought that was too much of a jump," said Wittebor...

Warning: this Alert may cause headaches. Those readers who have ever roamed the Serbonian Bog[1] that is Medicaid will feel right at home. THE MEDICAID BOG The so-called Medically Needy - Medicare beneficiaries whose Medicaid eligibility depends on meeting a spenddown (or share of cost) each month or quarter - are faced with difficult challenges...

The Medicare bill defeated in the Senate last night would have improved coverage for mental health and preventive services and helped pay medical and drug costs for more people with Medicare living on fixed incomes. The Bush administration objected to these improvements, which were paid for with a modest cut to some of the excessive subsidies Medic...

The net amount of Social Security checks will stop increasing for as many as 20% of Social Security recipients within the next six years, says a new study by Advisor editor Mary Johnson. That's because, in relatively few years, rising Medicare Part B premiums will completely consume annual Cost-Of-Living Adjustments for growing numbers of seniors. ...

Older Americans in Medicare's Part D prescription drug program are more likely to pay at least $300 a month for medicines than those on other plans, a study published Tuesday by the journal Health Affairs has found. Experts consider the poll of more than 16,000 seniors, performed by the Kaiser Family Foundation, the Commonwealth Fund, and the T...

WASHINGTON, D.C. (AP) - Consider it the other drug problem: Millions of people don't take their medicine correctly - or quit taking it altogether - and the consequences can be deadly. On average, half of patients with chronic illnesses like heart disease or asthma skip doses or otherwise mess up their medication, says a report being issued later th...

CHICAGO (Reuters) - New prescription drug coverage in the federal Medicare insurance plan for the elderly drove a boost in use of pricey brand-name drugs such as statins and ulcer medications, an analysis released on Tuesday said. Medicare, available to 43 million elderly and disabled Americans, began to pay for prescription drugs in 2006, the ...

New York, NY -- People in private Medicare health plans can disenroll from their plans if they signed up after receiving misleading information, according to the Centers on Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS). To date, neither CMS nor the insurance companies that operate Medicare private health plans have informed people enrolled in these plan...

Somerset County senior citizens who thought they were getting help with the doughnut hole provision of Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage with the new Somerset County Drug Discount Card received bad news from Tuesday's county commissioners' meeting. None of their purchases with the new NACo card made during their doughnut hole will coun...

Senior beneficiaries enrolled in a Medicare Part D prescription drug plan still lag behind the coverage afforded seniors covered by employer plans or under a veterans' health plan, according to a report in the journal Health Affairs. The report, which surveyed some 16,000 senior citizens, states that while more senior citizens have drug coverage th...

The open enrollment period for the Medicare prescription drug benefit begins on Thursday, and CMS has established a new online tool to help with the comparison of plans, the Wall Street Journal reports. The tool, which appears on the Medicare.gov Web site, allows users to enter the list of medications that Medicare beneficiaries currently take ...

Attention seniors -- and those who love them. Medicare Part D -- the prescription drug program -- is back again. From Nov. 15 through Dec. 31, there is a new "open enrollment" period for 2008 Part D coverage. So, here's a reminder of how Medicare Part D works, along with a quick lesson in how to use the Medicare.gov "PlanFinder" tool to choose ...

As if escalating prices for food and gas weren't enough of a worry, most seniors in Medicare's prescription-drug program are paying considerably higher monthly premiums for coverage this year, according to a study to be released today. Those in the 10 largest plans -- which account for nearly three-fourths of seniors signed up for drug coverage...

Chicagoan Jonathan Winans, 75, is curtailing costs in this time of high gas and food prices, in part, by zeroing in on prescription costs. The retired Dominick's deli manager has high blood sugar, high cholesterol, arthritis and a heart condition. He's on a dozen medications, and his wife, Elaine, 76, is on pain medication for arthritis. "I hav...

Biotech drugmaker Amgen Inc. is among the companies that could see profits trimmed by a Congressional spending bill aimed at streamlining the Medicare program. On Friday Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus released a $20 billion bill that outlines Medicare spending through 2010. Roughly 44 million seniors U.S. receive health coverage throu...

Medicare premiums might soon start crushing retiree spending power. I estimate that many a long-lived couple might need to reduce their retirement spending on nonmedical consumption by 13 percent to 26 percent to avoid sharp declines in purchasing power as they get older. This is not an alarmist fantasy. My estimates come from projecting historical...

This past April, the Medicare Rights Center launched the Medicare Private Health Plan Monitoring Project to learn about the experiences of people with Medicare enrolled in these plans. In the past two months, we have received story after story from people with Medicare, their family members and friends, counselors and caseworkers about the problems...