Medicare Advantage plans combine both parts of Medicare, and the health plans are required to cover everything that is covered under original Medicare. However, your provider may be reporting your doctor's orders to your Medicare Advantage plan in order to get prior authorization for your CT scan. Most Medicare Advantage plans routinely require prior authorization to manage your care and to prevent excess use of care that has not been documented as medically necessary. This practice protects you from surprise bills, and confirms that the provider is authorized to bill your Medicare Advantage plans for your care..Illegal immigrants get jobs using counterfeit, invalid, and stolen Social Security numbers that employers use to withhold payroll taxes and report earnings to the Social Security Administration. Immigration advocates argue that unauthorized workers have little chance of collecting benefits. "That changes once those workers gain a valid Social Security number," Hyland says. Social Security Administration policy allows noncitizens who have evidence of earnings under invalid Social Security numbers, to claim and reinstate those earnings for use in determining entitlement once they obtain a valid Social Security number. The earnings are then used to determine the initial retirement benefit amount..While seniors with Medicare aren't required to have an Obamacare health plan, they have worries too. Obamacare cut Medicare by more than 0 billion over ten years, and that's starting to impact seniors age 65 and older. In particular, the law cut reimbursements to Medicare Advantage plans by 6 billion..Just years before they retired these individuals learned they would have significantly lower benefits than they expected because of amendments to the Social Security Act that were signed into law in 1977 and which have compounded over time..This discrepancy between COLAs and real costs is squeezing senior households. Retirees are forced to draw down savings faster than planned, and work far longer than anyone ever imagined. In addition, the percentage of households with credit card debt headed by someone age 75 or older has doubled from 11 percent in 1998 to 22 percent in 2010 according to recent data from the Employee Benefit Research Institute. The sad fact is that people 65 and older are the fastest-growing segment of the U.S. population filing for bankruptcy. Seniors are getting deep into debt because of high medical bills, long-term care costs, and dwindling retirement savings..Under current law, when noncitizens receive a valid work-authorized, Social Security number, all earnings, from authorized and unauthorized work count toward qualifying for and determining benefits. Under an amnesty, potentially hundreds of billions in earnings under invalid Social Security numbers could become the basis for calculation of Social Security benefits as unauthorized immigrants change status, eroding program financing more rapidly and raising the possibility of more benefit cuts..While it is true that we must come together to address our budget, we cannot fix our fiscal problems on the backs of our seniors. We also must not use our economic future as a bargaining chip to advance unrelated partisan interests. During my time in Congress I'm proud to fight for Medicare benefits for our next generation of seniors. As we look forward to the next 50 years I am cognizant of some of the challenges facing Medicare. But I also see opportunity:.Either way, you will need to consider how well your income, including Social Security, retirement savings, pension and other income will allow you to sustain mortgage payments over the refinancing periods. It's also helpful to use realistic budget expenses. That means estimating how taxes will reduce your Social Security and retirement income, and factoring in a realistic growth rate for medical expenses of at least 10% or more each year, to account for both rising prices and the greater need for services as we age..Use Retirement Savings or Start Social Security Early to Cover Large Medical Expenses?
