News

The new payment system applies to traditional fee-for-service Medicare and not to Medicare Advantage plans which have their own system. If you are told that Medicare's home health benefits have changed, don't believe it. Coverage requirements haven't changed, and Medicare beneficiaries are still entitled to the same type of home health services..Automatic renewals are supposed to make this fall's Open Enrollment under the new health law run more smoothly for consumers like you. But analysts are warning to only do so as a last resort - especially if you qualified for a lower premium. The lower premiums are made possible through premium subsidies, which are actually an advance tax credit based on your income. According to analysts, health insurance exchange customers who like the convenience of automatically renewing are likely to receive outdated and inaccurate premium subsidy amounts that could result in big tax bills later..The Democratic leadership in the House has announced that the House will not take its August break until the next pandemic relief legislation is passed but so far we have seen no indication regarding the intentions of the Republican-run Senate. As of right now, the Senate is scheduled to be out of session from August 10 until September 7..A controversial "Medicare" tax on net investment income that was signed into law shortly after passage of the 2010 Affordable Care Act is expected to once again come under debate according to The Senior Citizens League. "During the battle over The Affordable Care Act, a new source of funding - a 3.8% Medicare Net Investment tax was enacted - presumably as means to strengthen Medicare funding," says Mary Johnson, a Medicare policy analyst for The Senior Citizens League. "But the truth is those revenues, which the Joint Committee on Taxation estimates to be .5 billion for 2021, never actually made it into the Medicare Part A Trust Fund," she says.".My husband and I are not yet 65 or enrolled in Medicare. We are still working primarily so we can get health insurance coverage through our employers. We're worried about the effect of "Obamacare" on our insurance premiums and whether our employers will drop coverage. Will Members of Congress give up their taxpayer-funded healthcare benefits? I think they should be required to get Obamacare benefits like the rest of us!.I decide to go through the mail before I wash the car..Two Bills Gain Cosponsors.The hold-harmless provision was again triggered on a nation-wide basis in 2016, when the COLA was zero, and again in 2017, when it was just 0.03 percent. In the meantime the Part B premium rose to 4.00 per month. In 2018, the COLA finally boosted benefits by 2 percent, but even so, roughly half of all beneficiaries reported that the increase in Part B premiums offset their entire COLA this year..Berna Heyman, a retired librarian who has Wilson Disease testified how she was a victim of obscene price gouging. Her annual co-pay for the drug Syprine rose from 0 in 2013 to ,000 in 2014, with her drug plan paying over 0,000. When she and her doctor applied for Valeant pharmaceutical's patient assistance program, she was denied financial assistance from the manufacturer because she was on Medicare.