United States Seniors: More Left-Wing Rants about Medicare from United States Public Broadcasting

In this lastest of a series of misleading articles that the United States Public Broadcasting Service (PBS) web site is providing, Medicare beneficiaries get some good -- but kind of obvious -- advice. If you qualify for Social Security (SS) Extra Help, take it. However the 2,000,000 who might qualify (because SS knows their income) but haven't applied, probably have not applied because their assets are too high. Others I have run into in the senior center, typically in their 80s, simply do not want it even though they qualify because they would rather see "poor people get the help." Others have secondary drug insurance through former employers that does not show up on the government's records.

But still, the author is right for once (unlike these other articles here, here and here): find out for yourself if you qualify.

Unfortunately PBS was too busy going off on another left-wing rant to tell readers the two most important facts about SS Extra Help.

1. People on Extra Help are never affected by the Part D donut hole
2. People on Extra Help can change Part D or Part C plans every month is they want (so all this so-called open enrollment advice from PBS is meaningless to them, at least in terms of this time of year)

The PBS author should have also mentioned that about half the states in the United States also have state pharmaceutical assistance programs (SPAPs). They vary in generosity (proportional to the cost of living in the various states in my opinion). In Massachusetts couples "making" up to $70,000 a year are eligible -- with no asset test (unlike SS Extra Help) -- and I understand the upper limits are even higher in New York. Again many seniors get secondary retiree insurance that does not show up in Part D research and worst case, a middle or upper income senior can buy a policy that provides coverage in the donut hole.

So instead of providing all this useful information, the guy who wrote this PBS article couldn't help himself or herself by getting into all the blather in the last three paragraphs about national Part D indexing and the constant Democratic Party whine about negotiating drug prices. Both points are totally meaningless to the people for whom this series of articles is supposedly written. But the left is on a 12-year-long campaign to repeal Part D and make it like the VA drug system and nothing will hold the left back.