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I hope you’ve all had a great Thanksgiving and will have a wonderful Christmas and a very happy New Year. I have been under the weather, but I have met a wonderful group of friends, who are “dog people”. I had been wondering what I could do for my adorable, sweet Portia. She is an Italian Greyhound, all of 15 pounds and the sweetest, smartest dog (without having had any training) I have ever been around. She loves people, cats and dogs and not necessarily in that order. My newly found frien...
I hope you are getting this before November 8, the date you must vote in order to exercise your privilege and duty as a citizen to choose a new president to govern our country for the next four or eight years. And I hope you have chosen wisely, especially seniors, who will be dependent on Social Security and Medicare for the rest of your lives. If all things were right in this world, we would not be depending on profit making insurance and pharmaceutical companies but we would all be safely...
Suns, skies, clouds and flowers of June together cannot rival for one hour, October’s bright blue Alaska weather. – H H Jackson. If you think your prescribed meds are getting more expensive each time you get another order in, you are absolutely right. Just a couple of questions to my friends: Wouldn’t the world be a far better place if there were no insurance companies? Why do the people on Medicare Part D have to buy into an insurance company? When I saw my doctor last week, he told me his e...
September Morn, please stay for a while longer, for when you are gone it will be time for an introduction to snowflakes and a lonesome, cold winter. But for readers lucky enough to have a working fireplace, it will be nice to cozy up to it again. Please remember to get registered to vote, and I can’t stress enough the importance of voting this year. The next president will be selecting one or maybe two Supreme Court justices. Social Security Disability benefits Social Security pays disability b...
Do not go back to what you loved in August, for you will see the near ending of the times you loved. August is the beginning of the end of the year, the times when the lush green leaves start turning to rust and yellow. But if you are a happy outdoorsman and can’t wait to see the first snowdrop, you will be coming into your own, waxing your skis, sharpening your skate blades. Taking your heavy wool sweaters out of mothballs and checking to see where you left your snow shovels. I am not one of t...
July and Independence Day is here. That may be good for some, but for others it is a sentence for loneliness. If you think that living into your near-nineties is always a blessing, I am here to tell you that for many it is not. Your contemporaries are no longer around – they’ve either just moved away or are deceased. You can no longer drive your car and have lost your independence and your eyesight is failing. You likely have no close relatives who live nearby and are willing and able to giv...
What is more wonderful than a gloriously 70 degree temperature on an innocent day in June, especially when I am writing this on May 15 in Anchorage, Alaska? For those of you who do not believe in climate change, I feel sorry for you. I have been living in Alaska for 48 years and I have never seen a springtime like the one we are now having here. It is not so good for the fishermen and the rest of the people who live on the northwest coasts of our largest state, because they are losing land to...
Be cheerful in the merry month of May, a harbinger of Summer’s advent, and good times will soon be here. That is, if you all vote ... the right way. JOKE! Seriously, here are five reasons to vote: 1. To speak your mind, to tell elected officials how you feel about health care, Social Security, the environment, education (especially if you have children or grand children). 2. To control our future, elected officials make decisions that affect our daily lives. 3. To stop complaining and make t...
I know the winter sports enthusiasts will not be agreeing with me, but I am glad we have had a short winter and an early spring and (knock wood!) my roof is still intact. March 23 was the sixth anniversary of the Affordable Care Act, otherwise known as the Obama Care Act, or ultimately as “Obama Cares,” and we know he does. For those in Congress who have tried to eradicate this bill (law) over 62 times, I would again like to inform you of the benefits it has brought to you: • since the bill...
We are not afraid of the ides of March anymore, since the IRS beckons us now to the ides of April. For the many questions I have been asked about the differences between Medicare and Medicaid, I will explain. Medicaid is a joint federal and state program that helps with medical costs like nursing home care and personal care services, for some people with limited income and resources. You may be eligible for extra help paying for Medicare prescription drug coverage (Part D), even if your income...
People with Medicare can get off to a healthy start in the new year. Medicare covers a full range of preventive services to help keep you healthy and find problems early, when treatment is most effective. If you have Original Medicare, you’ll be able to get a yearly “Wellness” visit and many preventive services at no cost to you. Talk with your doctor or health care provider to find out what tests or other services you may need. Medical assistance and your taxes If you are one of the milli...
I have been asked what the difference is between a primary and secondary payer in Medicare. The insurance that pays first (primary payer) pays up to the limits of its coverage. The one that pays second (secondary payer) only pays if there are costs the primary insurer didn’t cover. The secondary payer (which may be Medicare) may not pay all the uncovered costs. Remember, Medicare usually pays only 80 percent of the cost of the medical procedure. If your employer insurance is the secondary payer,...
I cannot believe that this year is almost over. Merry Christmas and a Happy New Year to all! It is ironic to me that although I have helped so many people in all the years that I have been working with AARP and the Older Persons Action Group this is the first year I will have been alone through Thanksgiving, Christmas and New Years. Due to my advanced age I have lost all my friends, who have either moved out of Alaska or are deceased. My small family lives a thousand miles away and will not be...
Winter has finally arrived, with one small fall of the flaky, white stuff and if the prognosticators are to be believed, due to the imminent arrival of “El Nino,” it will be a mild one. At my age I am forever thankful. I used to welcome snow, when I could go “sno-go” riding and even take a turn on the old skis, but now snow is just a nuisance. It is again time to remind us that winter brings slippery steps, streets, roads and don’t forget fallen leaves, and we have to step carefully. And that...
Fall is here and we are expecting another mild winter; happy days for me – the less snow we get the fewer times I have to have my roof shoveled. I haven’t heard from any readers about the “filial responsibility laws” I last wrote about, which is probably good news, since it means that seniors are taking care of their children and children are happily taking care of their parents. After my own 14-day stay in the hospital, which cost over $100,000, I am curious as to what Caitlyn Jenner had to...
September, what a terrible month with the loss of the David Letterman and Jon Stewart shows. Well, now I can get to bed an hour earlier. We could be paying much less Why do Americans pay a lot more for prescription drugs than people in other advanced countries or even those with certain private insurance plans? In case you don’t know, Medicare is not allowed to negotiate with drug companies to get lower prices, according to the Part D prescription drug program. This is one of the reasons I w...
We had been having a wonderful summer and I always expect a colorful autumn here in Anchorage. That is, the summer started out well, but I had an unexpected problem. I wasn’t feeling well and when a friend stopped in to see me, I must have looked very bad because he immediately called 911. The EMTs thought I needed to go to the hospital and that is where I ended up. I was standing next to a nurse, who for some reason was holding on to me. She let go and the next thing I knew, I was on the floor,...
It is the middle of this year and time to talk about the valuable Medicare Preventive services that you are entitled to if you are on Medicare Part B, the part of Medicare that helps pay for non-hospitalized benefits. (FYI, Medicare Part A is the part of Medicare that helps pay for the expenses you incur when you are hospitalized. If you have worked under Social Security and paid into Medicare for 40 quarters at any time during your life, you automatically receive Medicare Part A without a...
There is nothing as sweet as a day in June. I’m not so sure about the rest of the country, but that really holds true for Alaska. When the leaves start bursting out of their pods, and the sun shines until midnight, I know I picked the right state to live in. Medigap policies in Alaska I have recently been asked about additional insurance if one has Medicare. If you have Medicare, both parts A and part B, you can also buy a supplemental insurance policy, sometimes called Medigap (a policy that f...
Comparing services using the Medicare website This month, I am going to use the Medicare website (which you too can easily use at www.Medicare.gov/home health care). The three homes I picked out to compare are the Fairbanks Memorial Hospital, the Hospice & Homecare of Juneau and the Mat-Su Regional Home Care. The first two are privately owned and the third is proprietary. All three of these institutions compare favorably as to Nursing Care, Physical, Occupational and Speech therapy, Medical...
What retirement ‘security’? The United States ranked 19th in a recent international assessment of retirement security worldwide. This places the U.S. just behind France and just ahead of Slovenia in the rankings, while Switzerland, Norway and Australia took the top three positions. Nations were ranked in four categories: finances in retirement, health, quality of life and well-being. The United States’ comparatively low level of retirement benefits, in addition to a lack of workplace retir...
Julius Caesar was told to beware of the “ides of March” and that used to be a warning to us, too, to get our taxes done by the 15th. But the great IRS decided to give us another month, and so we can now relax until the 15th of April. Most seniors, if their income is only from Social Security, will not have to file for taxes anyway. Since this is the 50th anniversary year for the Medicare program, I am reiterating the following information for people who are new to Medicare and/or for the peo...
Happy Shortest Month of the Newest Year! To those of you who bought the Medicare Part D Prescription Drug plan, I am sorry to tell you that there was incorrect information about pharmacies who participated in Aetna’s 2015 Part D website during the open enrollment period. Community pharmacists and beneficiary advocates say that the situation is problematic but the National Community Pharmacists Association called the situation a “bait and switch” on beneficiaries. Centers for Medicare and Medic...
Social Security COLA increase Happy New Year and I hope it is a healthy one. If you are on Social Security, you will notice that you received a whopping 1.7 percent increase in your benefit. Please spend it wisely as you probably will not get any more “good” Social Security news for the next two years. Replacing lost or stolen credit cards and documents I have a sad story to tell and I hope that you all learn a lesson from my misfortune. All of my identification cards were either lost or sto...
My friends, I always regret it when I have to report not so good news to you. The Medicare Part D Prescription Drug Plans for 2015 are the unpalatable ones that I always knew they would be since the program started – there are no good policies that I can suggest to my clients. The lowest premium (Humana Walmart) is $15.60, but it comes with a whopping $320 deductible. In fact, most of the plans have a deductible of $320. Why do you think that is? Is this collusion? And why is there still a ...
