Medicare supplemental health plans may be facing new limits

Supplemental health plans for Medicare insurance beneficiaries may soon be facing cutbacks as a result of the major reductions being made in the budget as a result of the special U.S. Congress deficit reduction panel. Medigap insurance plans provide additional coverage for many elderly people who have Medicare. These are individuals often live on fixed incomes. They rely on Medigap to protect them from the many deductibles and expenses for which Medicare does not provide coverage. A lobbyist that has been keeping track of the latest “super committee” developments explained…

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Answers you should know to the FAQ’s about Medicare

Though it may feel overwhelming when you are faced with the most common questions to Medicare and Medicare Supplement Insurance, in truth, it doesn’t take hours of research to know what options are available to you. The most commonly asked question is regarding the difference between Medicare Advantage (MA) Plans, and the Original Medicare. The fact is that there are a number of important differences between them. The original plan is government Medicare, whereas MA is private Medicare. The two plans involve comparable out-of-pocket expenses. An MA plan is essentially…

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Standard & Poor’s reports cost of Medicare increasing at its slowest rate in over half a decade

According to data recently released by Standard & Poor’s, over the last year, the revenue increase for hospitals resulting from Medicare patients was about one third over what had been seen from patients who are covered by some form of private health insurance. The S&P Healthcare Economic Index showed that the revenue from Medicare increased by 2.5 percent per hospital patient before June 2011, which is the slowest increase since January 2005, when S&P’s first started to monitor this income. That said, the revenue generated from patients who were covered…

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Medicare regulations may be causing shortage of cancer drugs

A month’s long shortage of cancer drugs may be the result of Medicare regulations. For several years, Medicare has provided coverage for cancer patients, allowing them to obtain treatments that they would otherwise have no access to. While Medicare offers this coverage, however, the number of cancer fighting drugs has been falling steadily. The phenomenon may be the result of a regulation within the Medicare system that dictates that doctors must purchase cancer drugs, not patients. Traditionally, patients have been responsible for purchasing their own medications as prescribed to them…

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