Medicare and More - Latest Comments

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

BajaDemocrats — Sat, 12 May 2012 18:36:12 -0000

I've been getting a rash of robocalls offering to lower the interest rate on my credit card debt to my internet phone service phone. I don't have any CC debt, and only friends & family have that number. The caller ID always says "wireless caller" with various numbers. I think these companies just pick a valid prefix number and then robocall all possible number variations in that prefix, internet calling costs a penny a minute or less, so no big loss to them. I just press the number "2" when the spiel starts which tells them "not interested, don't call again". The robocall ends immediately, and that has cut way down on the calls.

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

Rick Raton — Sat, 12 May 2012 18:04:27 -0000

I cancelled the land line, have my cell registered and now am receiving calls on it. BAH !

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

Rick Raton — Sat, 12 May 2012 18:03:19 -0000

A waste of your time to register. My phone has always been reigstered on do not call. For ten years, never ending calls from Florida time share creeps. I always gathered information from them, names, phone numbers and reported each and every call I rec. They never stopped calling. They do not follow up and there are no real penalties.

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

Casca Longinus — Thu, 10 May 2012 15:06:30 -0000

Also be aware that your banks and mortgage companies will sell the addresses and phone numbers of their customers to anyone for a small fee. This is in the terms and conditions fine print if you read it. It allows them to share your information with affiliates that may contact you, and you are authorizing this by doing business with them with no option to not allow it. An “affiliate” includes anyone they have an agreement with and there is no restriction, so it can be anyone that pays them for the information. They will also allow third parties to use their letterhead in junk mail sent to you, which can make you think you are dealing with your bank if you don’t read through the often difficult, extremely small fine print, sometimes on the back in light gray font. There is a disclaimer which absolves any responsibility even if the offer is a complete scam, and the bank authorized the use of their name.

A fairly recent scam is third party survey companies contacting you claiming they were hired by your bank or insurance company to gather information to better serve your account or make possible cost savings adjustments. If you contact your bank or insurance company the customer service rep will tell you that yes, this is legitimate. Even the service rep does not know that it was the survey company that approached the bank or insurance agency with the offer to gather this information paying a small fee to the bank or insurance company plus providing them with results of the survey, if they allow the company to use their name. The survey company profits by selling the information they gathered from you to other parties. You should refuse to give any information to third parties, and contact your bank or insurance company to inform them you will only give information to someone that works directly for their company and should only be required to give information if something has changed since you opened the policy.

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

Casca Longinus — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:44:23 -0000

I did not say I visited a website. I said all the company has to say if complained about is that the person visited their website and there is no way to prove that you did not, so the telmarketer does not have to pay attention to the do not call list.

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

tiponeill — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:39:48 -0000

Handing out dumb advice isn't "productive".
On the other hand, I would advise you to change your phone number ;)

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

Karyn_Zoldan — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:35:54 -0000

Tip, you're a PIA. Go do something productive. My land line is 1 digit off from a local social service agency that deals with drug and alcohol addicts seeking treatment. I get at least 2 or 3 wrong numbers a week. The caller always asks what number they dialed. End of story.

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

tiponeill — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:28:06 -0000

So ? the "wrong number" knows what number it just dialed on any modern phone or autodialer.

All the message does is alert the caller that they have dialed incorrectly - it doesn't give them any information.

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

Karyn_Zoldan — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:24:54 -0000

Wrong numbers also get the phone number.

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

tiponeill — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:08:36 -0000

Why not ? The caller know what it is.

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

tiponeill — Thu, 10 May 2012 14:00:18 -0000

Thanks for the warning - I had heard that our bought and paid for congresscritters were going to sell them our cellphone numbers.

Not that it works - they have enough "exceptions" that one local business that calls itself a "surveyor" already likes to call my cell phone while I'm driving and it's perfectly legal.

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

Denise_Early — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:57:59 -0000

You mention being told that you visited a website and therefore gave permission to call. This is very important - and very hard to avoid. If you enter a contest online, or fill out a form for information... you are probably giving permission for your information to be shared. I know it's terrible, but the government cannot enforce the "do not call" list if marketers have found ways to get around it.

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

Casca Longinus — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:48:25 -0000

We have been registered with the “Do Not Call” since it first came out, and re-registered several times since it seemed to have no effect. The government is not enforcing the list, and allows telemarketers to claim their call is a survey to get around the list. They can also claim that you visited their website, or an affiliate’s website and left your phone number agreeing to be contacted according to the terms and conditions of their website. There is no way to prove or disprove this, so the telemarketer has an easy way around the list.

The government website should have an option to be put on a list to block all calls from all businesses regardless of whether they are telemarketing or conducting a survey. All of these businesses should have to register their phone numbers as business numbers and all phone companies should have to support the blocking of these numbers to your phone unless you specifically call a number from your phone and unblock that number. If a person on the list gets an unsolicited call, there should be an option to immediately dial a number which automatically reports that number (caller id blocked or not) to a government database which after a number of reports will cause an investigation of that number.

If a business phone calls a personal phone or a cell phone which has not specifically authorized calls from that business phone, even when not on the do not call list, they should get a recorded message requiring them to accept charges of $10 per minute charged to their business phone account before the call is completed. $8 per minute should go to the account of the private phone and $2 per minute shared between the two phone companies for handling the transaction.

Re: Register for the “Do Not Call” list

Karyn_Zoldan — Thu, 10 May 2012 13:36:23 -0000

That's all good advice. Thank you. What really slays me is when I get a voice mail or answering machine and the message says you have reached 254-XXXX, please leave a message. People should NEVER be announcing their phone number on their answering machine.

Re: Do you need Medicare Part B?

Denise_Early — Tue, 08 May 2012 11:27:27 -0000

If their income is below $1,256 per month, they can get it paid for through the Medicare Savings Program. There is an Area Office on Aging in every state, and every city has some kind of oranization to help older people get this help. It's just that lots of people don't even know about the Medicare Savings Program as well as the Low Income Subsidy to help them with their drug costs. Spread the word!

Re: Do you need Medicare Part B?

PatSisMc — Tue, 08 May 2012 11:20:38 -0000

Some people can't afford Part B. By the time they pay rent, utilities and food there is nothing left.

Re: Do you need Medicare Part B?

Gaston Bunny — Tue, 08 May 2012 11:04:29 -0000

Too many older people don't understand what they are paying for and don't know who to trust to ask. I encourage you to get this information out to church groups as well as through the local news papers -- and I hope that people who know older folks will clip your columns and pass them along.

Re: Do you need Medicare Part B?

matt spitsbergen — Mon, 07 May 2012 13:17:11 -0000

I am a licensed agent in Florida. I also see seniors on a regular basis that don't have Medicare Part B. Thanks for writing this article. I always do my due diligence in setting them up with the Medicare Savings Program!

Re: More lies about Medicare

Denise_Early — Wed, 02 May 2012 12:24:12 -0000

The link to the Washington Post story is provided in my post - which is not the post above these comments, but the more recent post with Jesse Kelly in the title.

I saw a Jesse Kelly add this morning where some old guy pleads with Jesse, "Please don't let them cut my Medicare". The old guy should have been saying, "Jesse, please don't you cut my Medicare". Jesse has changed his tune from 2010. I guess I could call him a flip flopper on this one.

Jesse Kelly and Republicans are misrepresenting the "cuts" to Medicare. These are not benefit cuts but policy changes that will reduce spending. There are many different policies in the Affordable Care Act that will reduce spending while not cutting benefits to seniors. Republicans include them in the Ryan budget but then turn around and try to fools seniors into believing that Obamacare and Democrats are "cutting their benefits". That is a lie.

Re: More lies about Medicare

tiponeill — Tue, 01 May 2012 21:12:58 -0000

This might explain it more clearly:
http://jaredbernsteinblog.com/...

Re: More lies about Medicare

toughteri — Tue, 01 May 2012 18:02:00 -0000

Denise - why don't you publish the ENTIRE post to me; your creative editing tells only a partial story on this thread.

And, you have the audacity to call Jesse Kelly a liar?

Re: More lies about Medicare

Denise_Early — Tue, 01 May 2012 17:46:24 -0000

I found a memo regarding your situation, and here is the pertinent paragraph. You are in a Part D plan, though it is offered through an employer retirement package.

Part D-IRMAA and Employer Plans

As we have implemented the Part D-IRMAA requirements, it has come to our attention that there appears to be some confusion regarding the applicability of the Part D-IRMAA to beneficiaries enrolled in employer group health plans (EGHPs) that offer drug coverage. Some employer groups are under the
mistaken impression that beneficiaries enrolled in EGHPs do not have to pay the Part D-IRMAA and may be discouraging members from paying any assessed amounts.

We want to clarify that the Part D-IRMAA is assessed to
all beneficiaries with Part D coverage whose incomes exceed the above stated threshold amount. This includes individuals in standalone prescription drug plans, Medicare Advantage plans with prescription drug coverage, as well as EGHPs [employer group health plans] providing Part D coverage.

Re: More Jesse Kelly Lies About Medicare

Denise_Early — Tue, 01 May 2012 16:30:45 -0000

The Medicare payment cut to doctor fees was passed back in 1997 and our esteemed representatives in Washington have voted each year to ignore the law they passed and kick the can down the road. They did it again in 2011. The required-but-never-implemented cuts to doctor fees do make the long-range Medicare budget look better than it actually is.

This is not a new problem and it certainly was not created by Obama or Obamacare.

Re: More Jesse Kelly Lies About Medicare

professor_fantasy — Tue, 01 May 2012 15:29:20 -0000

While Kelly is clearly lying, the truth is that Congress cut Medicare benefits a few years before it passed the Affordable Care Act. They did this by making mandatory cuts to Medicare's allowable maximums. That is the most that medical providers can get back from Medicare. Even though Congress has waived those automatic cuts every year, the result of that law has still been a host of doctors refusing to see Medicare patients. At least 250 billion dollars of the savings that the president claimed would come from Medicare come from actually implementing these automatic cuts to the allowable maximums. When the Congressional Budget Office refigured the cost savings for the Affordable Care Act without including the automatic savings from cutting allowable maximums, the bill wound up costing taxpayers money instead of reducing the deficit. I guess Jess Kelly isn't the only one lying about Medicare costs and savings.

Re: More Jesse Kelly Lies About Medicare

tiponeill — Tue, 01 May 2012 13:29:44 -0000

That's the Repub strategy when it comes to everything.