Seniors |

Unlocking Medicare Benefits

Staff — Sat, 28 Oct 2023 06:55:24 +0000

What is Medicare

Medicare is the federal healthcare program for adults aged over 65, adults with disabilities, and people with end stage renal disease. The program provides coverage for inpatient and outpatient services, and prescription drugs.

Medicare gets money from two trust funds: the hospital insurance (HI) trust fund and the supplementary medical insurance (SMI) trust fund.

The trust funds get money from payroll taxes, as allowed by the Federal Insurance Contributions Act (FICA) enacted in 1935. Also, Medicare taxes at a rate of 2.9% are taken from people who are self-employed. Other trust funding money includes premiums and income from investments.

Taxes paid by employers, employees, and self-employed workers provide money for the HI trust fund, established in 1965. The trust fund also garners the interest earned on its investments, income taxes from some Social Security benefits, and income from Medicare Part A premiums.

The HI trust fund covers the services provided through Medicare Part A, which pays for inpatient hospital stays and care, including nursing care, meals, and a semi-private room. Part A also covers skilled nursing care, hospice services, and home health.

The HI trust fund also pays for Medicare administrative costs, including tax collection, and fighting fraud. The HI trust fund’s expenditures in 2019 totaled $328.2 billion.

Supplementary medical insurance trust fund

The SMI trust fund has two parts, namely Part B and Part D, funded by the premiums paid for each part. In addition, it receives funds authorized by Congress, and the interest from trust fund investments.

The SMI trust fund covers the services offered by Medicare Part B, a portion of Part D, and some of the Medicare program’s administrative costs.

Medicare Part B includes outpatient services, such as doctor’s visits, lab tests, certain cancer screenings and preventative care, and ambulance transport.

Medicare Part D provides coverage for prescription drugs. It gets funding from the SMI trust fund, and from premiums.

What Part A covers

Note
If you’re in a Medicare Advantage Plan or other Medicare plan, your plan may have different rules. But your plan must give you at least the same coverage as Original Medicare. Some services may only be covered in certain facilities or for patients with certain conditions.

In general, Part A covers:

2 ways to find out if Medicare covers what you need

Talk to your doctor or other health care provider about why you need certain services or supplies. Ask if Medicare will cover them. You may need something that’s usually covered but your provider thinks that Medicare won’t cover it in your situation. If so, you’ll have to read and sign a notice. The notice says that you may have to pay for the item, service, or supply.
F ind out if Medicare covers your item, service, or supply.

Medicare coverage is based on 3 main factors

Federal and state laws.
National coverage decisions made by Medicare about whether something is covered.
Local coverage decisions made by companies in each state that process claims for Medicare. These companies decide whether something is medically necessary and should be covered in their area.

How Do Medicare Advantage Carriers Make Money?

Advantage plan companies receive payments from Medicare. These plans get money per enrollee; it’s a set amount. Medicare makes separate payments for any plans that provide prescription drug coverage. Plans are paid for by Medicare through a bidding procedure. Bids are submitted depending on the costs for each member for services.

Bids that meet all qualifications receive approval. Benchmark amounts vary depending on the region. Benchmark amounts can range from 95% to 115% of Medicare costs. If bids come in higher than benchmark amounts, the enrollees must pay the cost difference in a monthly premium.

When bids are lower than benchmark amounts, Medicare and the health plan provide a rebate to enrollees after splitting the difference in cost. A new bonus system works to compensate for health plans that have high-quality ratings. Advantage plans that have four or more stars receive bonus payments for their quality ratings.

Get Started with Social Security

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Retirement Path for Seniors

Staff — Thu, 26 Oct 2023 22:14:07 +0000

Ready for Retirement ?

A very challenging passage in life’s transition is aging . Age is considered by many as just a number. Certain today’s 60plus generation is exceeds the quality of health experienced by previous generation. Although life expectancy numbers took a slight step back during COVID pandemic, its prior position showed a steady increase in longevity. Today’s 60-plus society is very active in the work force or running businesses. They are athletic and highly health conscious.

It is not a stretch to say that today’s 60s is yesteryear’s 50 plus group. The comparative quality of health and cognition would be nearly indistinguishable between groups of those who were 50+ in the 80s, compared to those who are 60+ post millennium.Which in fact, in many cases favorable to today’s group in comparison.

The one key difference is that the 60s of todays have more retirement opportunities compared to the 50s group. In fact if you were to combined the US demographic those age 50 and above with those in their 60s, it would equate to the 3rd largest economy in the world.

Being gifted with good health and financial footing has led many in the US to seek the retirement path earlier in the qualify matrix, with many starting in the age 62 category. Those “seniors” are looking to take advantage of those retirement opportunities but are not sure how to get started with some of the basic staples, like social security.

This is the first of a three-part series on how to 1) getting started on Social Security, 2). Manage Medicare and Medicaid, 3) How to add income during retirement.

How Social Security Works

Social Security is an insurance program. Workers pay into the program, typically through payroll withholding where they work. Self-employed workers pay Social Security taxes when they file their federal tax returns.

Workers can earn up to four credits each year. For every $1,510 earned in 2022, one credit was granted up to $6,040, or four credits had been achieved. It’s $1,640 up to $6,560 in 2023.

Social Security is financed through a 12.4% tax split among employers and employees; self-employed individuals pay the entire 12.4%. This tax money is deposited into the two Social Security trust funds: the Old-Age and Survivors Insurance (OASI) Trust Fund and the Disability Insurance (DI) Trust Fund.

The Social Security Administration pays current benefits and administrative costs out of these trust funds. Unused money is left in the trust funds and invested in Treasury bonds.A board of trustees oversees the financial operation of the two Social Security trust funds. Four of the six members are the secretaries of the Departments of Treasury, Labor, and Health and Human Services, and the Commissioner of Social Security. The remaining two members are public representatives appointed by the President and confirmed by the Senate.

Workers who have paid into the Social Security for at least 10 years become eligible for early retirement benefits at age 62. Waiting until your full retirement age (FRA), between ages 66 and 67 (depending on when you were born), results in higher monthly benefits. You’ll receive even more if you delay collecting retirement benefits to age 70, but benefits don’t continue to increase if you wait longer than that.

How to get started

The easiest and most convenient way to apply for retirement benefits is by using an online application. You will need to create or sign in to your personal my Social Security account. If SSA is not able to process your request, you will receive specific information on how to contact SSA by phone or schedule an appointment.

You can apply for retirement benefits up to 4 months before you want to start receiving your benefits. Even if you are not ready to retire, you still should sign up for Medicare 3 months before your 65th birthday.

You can also apply by calling 1-800-772-1213 (TTY 1-800-325-0778), Monday through Friday from 8:00 a.m. to 7:00 p.m local time or visiting your local Social Security Office. (Call first to make an appointment.)

Know Your Pay Rates

Seocial Security has a sliding scale which targets where on the scale you choose to take your retirement pay. Starting at 62 years of age up to full retirement. Estimate your rate here. To find your income estimate based on delayed claim you can see that here. Lastly you may also find a more specific benefit calculator here.

If you live outside of the United States, you can find the office that serves your country of residence on the Social Security Office of Earnings & International Operations page

Unlock Your Medicare Benefits

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Are Corporations Stealing the American Dream?

Staff — Fri, 23 Jun 2023 04:35:35 +0000

Some of the most beautiful dreams of life in America, involve getting a good education, a good paying job, buying a house and raising a family. American prosperity has been a magnet to much of the world. Any side of the world, USA meant wealth and prosperity. Nothing signified the dream of a prosperous American life like owning your own home. It sends a statement: ” This is my country; this is my life and this is my home” It exudes joy and the pride of living and working in the USA. But that dream might be coming to a swift end as home affordability is pricing many individuals out of the market.

75% of homes on the market are too expensive for middle-income buyers

As market watching goes, that dream may be more difficult to reach with each passing year. A pulse check of the housing market shows some shadowing signs that cast doubt on whether this current season of generational change will be able to buy in.

The US housing market is so unaffordable, over 75% of homes on the market are too expensive for middle class buyers, according to a recent report from the National Association of Realtors and Realtor.com.

That’s largely due to the shortage of housing supply, which has hit middle income buyers the hardest. Thanks to elevated mortgage rates, the housing market is missing around 320,000 homes priced at or below $256,000 – the maximum price a middle-income buyer earning up to $75,000 can afford.

Of the 1.1 million listings on the market in April, middle-income buyers could only afford 23% of them, the report said. That’s less than half of what the group could afford five years ago, when around 50% of all listings on the market were considered affordable for that group.

Economists say housing inflation will soon fall

“Ongoing high housing costs and the scarcity of available homes continues to present budget challenges for many prospective buyers, and it’s likely keeping some buyers in the rental market or on the sidelines and delaying their purchase until conditions improve,” said Realtor.com® Chief Economist Danielle Hale. “Those who are able to overcome affordability constraints may be increasingly drawn to newly constructed homes or to the suburbs and beyond, both of which may offer buyers more realistic opportunities for homeownership in the near term.”

With that said it is important to note that the “scarcity” of homes is exacerbated by the competing forces of corporate ownership.

Big business is buying up homes and rates unparalleled in US history. Institutional investors became major players in the rental market. They promised to return profits to their investors and convenience to their tenants. In fact, a significant part of the few new homes that are being built in this economy is being built with the express intention of being rental property and not for sale.

It worked. Between 2011 and 2017, some of the world’s largest private-equity groups and hedge funds, as well as other large investors, spent a combined $36 billion on more than 200,000 homes in ailing markets across the country. In one Atlanta zip code, they bought almost 90 percent of the 7,500 homes sold between January 2011 and June 2012; today, institutional investors own at least one in five single-family rentals in some parts of the metro area, according to Dan Immergluck, a professor at the Urban Studies Institute at Georgia State University. Some of the nation’s hardest-hit housing markets were finally stabilized.

The median price of an American house has increased by 28 percent over the last two years, as pandemic-driven demand and long-term demographic changes send buyers into crazed bidding wars.

Might the fact that corporate investors snapped up 15 percent of U.S. homes for sale in the first quarter of this year have something to do with it? The Wall Street Journal reported in April 2021 that an investment firm won a bidding war to purchase an entire neighborhood worth of single-family homes in Conroe, Texas.

Part of a cycle of stories drumming up panic over Wall Street’s increasing stake in residential real estate. Then came the backlash, as cool-headed analysts reassured us that big investors like BlackRock remain insignificant players in the housing market compared with regular old American families.

Blackstone is not the only player in the corporate housing rental market.

You’ll find Invitation Homes and Rich investors like Warren Buffett (left) and B.W. Hughes are buying up many of the single-family homes that have long sustained the US middle class. They along with Blackstone buy up high percentages of properties in America. Investment firms aren’t buying all the houses. But they are buying the most important ones.

The real danger here is not just a decline in the middle class but a removal of the middle class. Could it be that America of the not to distant future will be a place where the average worker will never own a place to call your own nor have generational wealth to pass down?

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Millions of Americans Asking to Save Medicaid Coverage

DeeMan — Tue, 28 Feb 2023 04:16:28 +0000

Protests for Medicaid Coverage for Millions

As a product of the $1.75 trillion spending bill that congress passed in Dec 2022, millions of people who enrolled in Medicaid during the COVID-19 pandemic could start to lose their coverage on April 1, 2023. Protests have broken out to save Medicaid.

A government policy on “health emergency” that prohibited states from terminating Medicaid coverage. The Covid-19 pandemic qualified as such an emergency. Many people applied for and received coverage during that period, which now appears to have ended.

Twenty-five Republican governors signed a letter asking the President to end the qualified Pandemic emergency, noting that this it is no longer an emergency. The letter also expressed growing concerns about bloated Medicaid enrollment.

Millions of people are expected to lose coverage under the program, which provides health care coverage to nearly 80 million people, most of whom are low-income people throughout the country. Under the proposal, the federal government will also phase out extra funds provided to states for the additional enrollees over the next year.

Many people will be eligible for health insurance coverage through their employers, the Affordable Care Act, or in the case of children, the Children’s Health Insurance Program. However, the cost and deductions of the ACA are considerably higher at a time when inflation is unchecked.

Robin Rudowitz, the director of Medicaid at Kaiser Family Foundation, advised people who are on Medicaid to ensure that their contact information is up to date on their accounts and to check their mail frequently to keep an eye on their eligibility status as the April 1st deadline approaches.

“There is likely to be people who fall through the cracks,” she said.

Protest to Save Medicaid

The move will free up additional funds to pay for more stable health insurance coverage for children in low-income households by requiring states to keep those children on Medicaid for at least a year after they have enrolled. However, a push to require states to extend Medicaid to new mothers for a 12-month period after giving birth failed to make the cut. Currently, the District of Columbia and 27 states extend coverage for a 12-month period for postpartum mothers.

Food Subsidies Withdrawn Affecting Millions

At the beginning of the pandemic, the federal government prohibited states from terminating people’s Medicaid coverage, even if they were no longer eligible. Before the pandemic, people would regularly lose their Medicaid coverage if they started earning too much money to qualify for the program, gained health care coverage through their employer, or moved to a new state. However, this all stopped once COVID-19 started spreading across the country.

Over the next year, states will be required to recheck the eligibility of every person who is on Medicaid. People will have to fill out forms to verify their personal information, including their address, income, and household size.

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Pandemic Food Stamps Subsidies are being Withdrawn

RM — Mon, 27 Feb 2023 16:48:29 +0000

At a time when inflation is high, Americans who have grown accustomed to subsidies such as Food Stamps, or Medicare may no longer qualify an millions of Americans are subject to the disqualifications.

States around the country are attempting to make it harder for needy families to access federal food-assistance programs.

Lawmakers in Ohio, Arizona, Arkansas, Missouri, Montana, and other states have proposed more restrictive policies to qualify for food assistance. These policies include cutting off benefits to those who have saved a little money or who own a decent car or adding paperwork requirements to document small changes in income and efforts to find work.

The moves come even as more than 20 million adults reported that their households sometimes or often did not have enough to eat in the week ending June 7, according to the U.S. Census Bureau.

When pandemic aid that has boosted food-stamp benefits gets cut next week, millions of low-income Americans will confront smaller balances in the accounts they use to pay for groceries, leaving food banks bracing for a spike in demand.

As of March 1, the emergency allotment for individuals and households enrolled in the federal Supplemental Nutrition Assistance Program, or SNAP, will end in 32 states, the District of Columbia, Guam and the U.S. Virgin Islands.

That means recipient households will see their monthly grocery allocations reduced by at least $95, according to the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities, a left-leaning research and policy think tank. In daily terms, that equates to trimming the roughly $9 per-person average to about $6.10. Moreover, the change comes when food prices in January increased 10% over the same month last year.

Older Workers Needed in Work Force

According to Charles Jones, a 63-year-old U.S. military veteran based in Rockford, Illinois, he received an enhanced monthly SNAP benefit of $281 under the temporary program. After it ends next week, his payments will plummet to $23 — the minimum monthly amount.

“When they cut this extra benefit from SNAP, that’s going to put me in a serious problem,” he said.

Jones said his pandemic-era SNAP payments helped him move out of a homeless shelter and into a $650-a-month studio apartment earlier this month. He said he’s concerned that when his allotment is slashed — likely because he also receives Social Security disability insurance payments — his rent and utilities will consume all of his income, jeopardizing his new shot at stability.

With food stamp cuts just days away, millions of Americans are bracing for tougher times in the grocery aisle.

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Older Americans Needed to Fill Employment in US Workforce

RM — Sat, 15 Oct 2022 11:07:39 +0000

Americans over the age of 55 will take roughly half of all new jobs created in the next decade, economists estimate, as the U.S. population ages and more people postpone retirement. What’s more, the biggest jump in labor force-growth in coming years will come from those age 75 and older. Overall employment is projected to nearly double by 2030, according to Labor Department forecasts. The future of the American workforce, in other words, is looking gray.

“We’re redefining old age,” says Richard Johnson, director of the Program on Retirement Policy with the Urban Institute, a Washington-based think tank. “Workers 65 and older are going to become much more important in the coming decade than they are today.”

The trend holds major implications for U.S. employers who have now spent more than two years trying to hire. In part because of what it says about who remains available to work. And which worker populations have the most untapped potential. Employment among prime-age Americans — aged 25 to 54 — has more than fully recovered and surpassed its pre-pandemic level. But employment among those above age 65 fell roughly 10% at the start of the pandemic and has yet to recover, Johnson says.

That means there is room for employers to lure potentially millions of retired Americans back to work for the right opportunity. Particularly as pandemic-related health concerns continue to fade. Given the growth in employment among older workers before the pandemic, some economists expect the wave of retirements over the past two years could be largely reversible. Making the growing ranks of Americans over 65 an available talent pool.

Economists at the Federal Reserve Bank of Kansas City, found that the share of Americans who are retired soared by 2.1 million above trend between February 2020 and June 2021. The increase wasn’t due to more people moving into retirement, but fewer people than normal going back to work after choosing to retire.

The Kansas City Fed economists felt that trend could be temporary for two main reasons. First, because previous recessions never saw this phenomenon, they believed it was an effect of Covid related health concerns and would fade alongside the pandemic.

And the share who retired “includes people across a wide range of ages,” the economists wrote. Suggesting many of those who postponed their plans to rejoin the labor force still have time to do so when the pandemic ends.

As of 2021, 25.8% of Americans between the ages of 65 and 74 were still working, according to Labor Department data. That share is forecast to jump to 30.7% by 2031.

Article published by Barron’s on Marketwatch

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Boost in Social Security Cost of living is Expected.

Staff — Sat, 15 Oct 2022 09:37:07 +0000

The current rise in inflation may have mixed effect on Social Security recipients. “A COLA of 8.7% is extremely rare and would be the highest ever received by most Social Security beneficiaries alive today,” Mary Johnson, a policy analyst at the Senior Citizens League who conducted the research, said. “There were only three other times since the start of automatic adjustments that it was higher.””There can be some very long-term effects to high inflation COLAs,” Johnson previously told FOX Business. “It’s like a no-win situation.”

Should Social Security beneficiaries see an 8.7% increase in their monthly checks next year, it would mark the steepest annual adjustment since 1981, when recipients saw an 11.2% bump. An increase of that magnitude would raise the average retiree benefit of $1,656 by about $144 per month or roughly $1,729 annually, the group said.

“A COLA of 8.7% is extremely rare and would be the highest ever received by most Social Security beneficiaries alive today,” Mary Johnson, a policy analyst at the Senior Citizens League who conducted the research, said. “There were only three other times since the start of automatic adjustments that it was higher.”

However, the decades-high benefit increase is not always good news for recipients, according to Johnson.

Higher Social Security payments are a bit of a Catch-22. They can reduce eligibility for low-income safety net programs, like food stamps, and can push people into higher tax brackets, meaning retirees will pay more taxes on a bigger share of their monthly payments.

Since 1984, retirees have owed taxes on their benefits if their income – including their Social Security payments – is more than $25,000 if they are single, or $32,000 if they are a married couple. Individuals who earn more than $34,000 and couples who earn more than $44,000 can be taxed on up to 85% of their benefits.

Some seniors may never have owed taxes on their benefits, but that’s likely to change next year when they file their tax returns. In fact, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated the share of Social Security benefits subject to tax could grow by 10% this year and another 10% in 2023. In all, total income taxes paid on that money are projected to climb by 37% this year.

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By 2030 adults over 65 will outnumber children under 18.

Staff — Fri, 14 Oct 2022 02:07:59 +0000

Time has come to reassess how we look at aging and retirement

How we got here

The Older Americans Act of 1965 (Pub.L. 89–73), was the first federal level initiative aimed at providing comprehensive services for older adults. It created the National Aging Network comprising the Administration on Aging on the federal level, State Units on Aging at the state level, and Area Agencies on Aging at the local level. The network provides funding—based primarily on the percentage of an area’s population 60 and older—for nutrition and supportive home and community-based services, disease prevention/health promotion services, elder rights programs, the National Family Caregiver Support Program, and the Native American Caregiver Support Program.

These programs, along with Social Security was intended to provide a safety net for all seniors being detached from working society and expected to live out their remaining days. In theory this is an excellent idea full of humanity. Most countries around the world have an aging safety net, the best of which are countries like Norway, Sweden, Switzerland, Canada and Germany In practice the US has revised the 1965 Act 10 times since its inception, last in 2007.

Fifteen years later, a change in evaluation is needed. The previous Ideology was that citizens would work until 65 then die off by 70. With the advance of medicine, nutrition and exercise, not only are people living years beyond 70, they are living decades. It is also expected that this current generation of incoming retirees will live somewhere between 80-100 years. There is a better than 50% chance of it.

Living well and healthy beyond 70 is the norm. There was an adage at the start of the millennium decade which said 60s is the new 50s. This was because of the way nutrition, medicine and exercise change the heath condition of seniors. That is more the case today as then.

The one area that has not been address for the added longevity is how will seniors finance the additional decades of living.

But with pensions fast becoming a relic of the past and real wages flat or falling for decades, millions of older adults have been too strapped to save. According to The New School Schwartz Center for Economic Policy Analysis, the median retirement savings for middle-income people 55 to 64 is only $60,000. Financing a long life with meager resources to cover even basic expenses is a national problem that looks only to worsen.

The coming seismic demographic shift will have profound implications for nearly every sector of society. It is already evident in the labor market, where nearly a quarter of the U.S. workforce is currently 55 and older, a cohort projected to increase to one-third in the next decade.

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