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medicare

What’s Up With Medicare Premiums? How Increases Are Determined

How are Medicare premiums determined each year? Sometimes there is an increase, and other times there’s not (at least for some).

Why You Should Consider Long Term Care Insurance

Long term care insurance is insurance that will pay in the event that an individual needs caregiving due to a number of afflictions or diseases. For example, if an individual is suffering from Alzheimer’s disease or dementia they made needs round the clock care. Generally, that care is provided by family members, with the majority of caregivers being daughters and spouses of caregiver. The costs for needing long term care can be expensive. Depending on the area of the country, care can range from $50,000 to $80,000 per year to stay in a nursing home and may run in the range of $20 to $30 per hour for care outside of the home. Based on the numbers above, long term care expenses can quickly drain an individual’s retirement savings, or other assets that were planned for other uses.

Medicare Part B

The next letter in our Medicare alphabet soup is Part B. Part B is essentially medical insurance that covers doctor’s services, outpatient care, home health services, and durable medical equipment. It will also cover some other services as well as well as many preventative services. As far as what doctors will and will not cover Part B depends on whether or not they have agreed to assignment. Assignment is simply your doctor or another health care provider agreeing to be paid directly by Medicare and be willing to accept the payment amount that Medicare decides is the value of the service. Agreement also means the doctor or health care provider cannot charge you any more than what the deductible and coinsurance amounts are. The basic cost for Medicare Part B for 2013 is $104.90 monthly. Individuals with higher AGI may end up paying more. The table below, courtesy of Medicare.gov shows […]

The ABC’s (and D’s) of Medicare

  With more and more baby boomers retiring, more and more people including the Boomers, and their children and families are going to have questions and concerns about Medicare. Questions can range from what Medicare is, what it does, what it doesn’t do, and the nuances that make up our nation’s health care for retirees. Medicare was created in 1965 by the Social Security Act and was signed into law by Lyndon Johnson. Currently, Medicare is funded via taxation and premiums paid by Medicare subscriber. Part A – which we will cover in a future article, is funded by a 2.9% tax on wages. Unlike Social Security tax that has a limit or cap on the amount of income that can be taxed ($110,100 in 2012 and $113,700 in 2013), Medicare has no such wage base. The 2.9% tax is on an unlimited amount of earnings. Eligibility for Medicare typically starts for […]

Baby Boomers Start Medicare

As of 12:01am EST on January 1, 2011, the very first Baby Boomer reached age 65… and that means that the era of Baby Boomers receiving Medicare has officially commenced. It is estimated that, during the period when Boomers are reaching age 65, between now and roughly 2030, the number of folks on the Medicare rolls will double.  Presently there are approximately 40 million Medicare recipients, and that number is expected to be around 80 million in 20 years. These incredible numbers will cause major challenges in funding the system – along with serious challenges in controlling the overall costs of healthcare during this period.  The rate of increase in the over-65 population will cause dramatic changes in the healthcare system in terms of capacity, costs, and controls. The new healthcare law passed earlier this year created an Independent Payment Advisory Board, which is supposed to provide guidance on how […]