Archive for the ‘Medicare News’ Category
The Social Security Administration has announced that monthly Social Security and Supplemental Security Income (SSI) benefits will increase 3.6 percent in 2012. The 3.6 percent cost-of-living adjustment (COLA) will begin with the January 2012 benefit payments. Increased payments for people on SSI will begin on December 30, 2011. For some beneficiaries, the increase in their Social Security benefit amount may be partially or completely offset by increases in Medicare premiums in 2012.
Yesterday President Barack Obama announced several new initiatives to help Veterans translate their military skills for the civilian workforce and provide Veterans with new tools to aid their search for jobs.
- The new Veterans Job Bank connects unemployed Veterans to job openings with companies that want to hire them. The Obama Administration partnered with leading job search companies to create a new, easy to use online service that enables employers to “tag” job postings for Veterans. It launched with more than 500,000 job listings, a number that will continue growing as more companies tag the job postings on their own websites and add them to the Veterans Job Bank.
- My Next Move for Veterans is an easy-to-use online tool created by the Department of Labor that allows Veterans to enter information about their experience and skills in the field, and match it with civilian careers that put that experience to use. The site also includes information about salaries, apprenticeships, and other related education and training programs.
New York Commission for the Blind and Visually Handicapped is the State Vocational Rehabilitation agency that serves individuals who are legally blind. Services include adaptive skills related to vision loss, vocational assessment and counseling, assistance with transition from school to work, job training and placement, job follow-up and other programs that help people get jobs.
Representatives of the U.S. Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC) will join other governmental agencies on November 5, 2011 from 9:30 a.m. – 12 p.m. in Baton Rouge, LA for a public town hall meeting to educate and assist the public on employment issues and problems. People who believe they have been victims of employment discrimination based are invited to attend. The event is free and no registration is required.
Members began receiving their annual notice of Creditable or NonCreditable prescription drug coverage in early September; those notices will be delivered to Members began receiving their annual notice of Creditable or NonCreditable prescription drug coverage in early September; those notices will be delivered to members through the end of the month.
This disclosure is required by the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services to inform Medicare Supplement members of their options and expectations if they decide to enroll in a Medicare Part D plan. We have been providing this disclosure notice annually since 2005 to Medicare Supplement members who have drug benefits as part of their plan. All members receiving the notices have been in their Medicare Supplement plan at least since December 2005, 84 months. Therefore all members in NonCreditable coverage plans will be subject to penalties if they enroll in a Medicare Part D plan.
Eighteen-day periods of mandatory school closures and other social distancing measures were associated with a 29 to 37 percent reduction in influenza transmission rates in Mexico during the 2009 pandemic. The research was carried out by scientists at the Fogarty International Center at the National Institutes of Health and published in PLoS Medicine.
The federal government’s YouTube channel features videos on careers with the government, food safety, interviews aboard a space shuttle, and much more.
Autism blurs the molecular differences that normally distinguish different brain regions, a new study suggests. Among more than 500 genes that are normally expressed at significantly different levels in the front versus the lower middle part of the brain’s outer mantle, or cortex, only 8 showed such differences in brains of people with autism, say researchers funded in part by the National Institutes of Health.
Delineation of the origin of the retrovirus known as XMRV from the genomes of laboratory mice indicates that the virus is unlikely to be responsible for either prostate cancer or chronic fatigue syndrome in humans, as has been widely published. The virus arose because of genetic recombination of two mouse viruses. Subsequent infection of lab experiments with XMRV formed the basis of the original association.
On June 5, 1981, an article concerning five previously healthy, young gay men in Los Angeles diagnosed with Pneumocystis carinii pneumonia, an infection that usually appears only in individuals with substantial immune system damage, appeared in the Morbidity and Mortality Weekly Report, a publication of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention.
The National Institutes of Health today announced an agreement with two non-profit organizations to accelerate the development of potential clinical therapies for rare blood cancers.
A study of tissue samples from 161 marine mammals that died between 2004 and 2009 in the Pacific Northwest reveals an association between severe illness and co-infection with two kinds of parasites normally found in land animals. One, Sarcocystis neurona, is a newcomer to the northwest coastal region of North America and is not known to infect people, while the other, Toxoplasma gondii, has been established there for some time and caused a large outbreak of disease in people in 1995.
Following recent anti-terrorism activity in Pakistan, the U.S. Department of State has issued an alert for U.S. citizens who are living or traveling abroad. Due to possible increases in anti-American violence, those living or staying in volatile areas should limit travel, avoid mass gatherings, and follow media reports on local events.
Today marks the launch of the second annual MusiCares and GRAMMY Foundation Teen Substance Abuse Awareness through Music Contest. Announced by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), part of the National Institutes of Health, along with MusiCares and the GRAMMY Foundation — the two nonprofit organizations of The Recording Academy — the contest asks young musicians, ages 14-18, to compose or create an original song and/or music video that explores, encourages, and celebrates a healthy lifestyle or accurately depicts a story about drug abuse. Winners will be revealed during NIDA’s second annual National Drug Facts Week, which begins Oct. 31, 2011.
Make your health a top priority through good nutrition, regular exercise, preventive screenings, and stress management.
Thirty years since the first report of the disease we now know as AIDS, scientists supported by the National Institute of Allergy and Infectious Diseases (NIAID), part of the National Institutes of Health, continue advancing toward our goal of a vaccine to prevent HIV infection. I am optimistic that we will succeed.
Get practical tips on hay fever, depression, keeping food safe, getting a good night’s sleep, HPV (human papillomavirus), and other topics. You can order the kit in printed form or view an online version of the publications.