Medicare enrollees who buy the optional Part D drug benefit may see substantial premium price hikes — potentially up to $50 a month — when they shop for next year’s coverage.
Such drug plans are used by millions of people who enroll in what is called original Medicare, the classic federal government program that began in 1965 and added a drug benefit only in 2006. The drug plans are offered through private insurers, and enrollees must pay monthly premiums.
It’s not known whether insurers will pursue the maximum increase allowed, as premium prices for next year won’t be revealed until closer to open enrollment, which starts Oct. 15.
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Ray Loewe, an 83-year-old retiree in Lancaster, PA., spent his career as a financial planner guiding people through the complexities of preparing for retirement.
But it wasn’t until he was well into his own retirement and switched to a concierge medical practice that charges an annual fee for more-personalized care that he learned a hard truth: He had significantly underestimated the cost of healthcare.
Americans tend to go into retirement in relatively good health and well aware they will pay premiums for such things as Medicare, supplemental Medicare insurance and Medicare drug plans and even long-term-care insurance. One widely used estimate for such healthcare costs—from financial-services titan Fidelity—pegs them at $330,000 for the average couple throughout retirement, or $165,000 for an individual, and those figures don’t include long-term-care insurance.
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As the summer travel season heats up, more cybercriminals are posing as online travel agents, advertising high-end vacation packages at sharp discounts.
By charging unsuspecting customers a fraction of the cost for lavish trips, phony booking sites cover the full price with stolen credit and loyalty cards to rake in a tidy profit. Sales margins can reach well over 1,000%, cybersecurity firms say.
Dark web travel agencies, as they are known, run ads on the open web with links to fake travel websites they have created. When a travel package is purchased, operators pocket the customer’s payment and quickly book and prepay for trips with the stolen card information on genuine online reservation apps, using customers’ real names, addresses and other details. For the vacationer, who typically is unaware of the scam, checking in for an illegally booked flight or hotel room requires only a driver’s license or other form of identification.
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Maybe it was a $20 bill you found on the subway platform or sidewalk. Maybe it was a surprise bonus at work. Or perhaps it was money inherited from a relative. Whichever the case, maybe you’ve been one of the lucky ones who’ve come into a windfall of money, small or large.
If you’re reading this and thinking, “Fat chance, that’s not me!” wait just a minute. Chances are that even if you haven’t yet experienced such a windfall of money, you most likely will at some point. It could be as mundane as a tax refund higher than you expected or a government stimulus check.
However, the question isn’t, “How can I predict when I’ll get a windfall of money?” (Though I’d love to be able to answer that!) Instead, we should ask, “How should we treat such windfalls? Should they be spent in a 'treat yo’self' splurge? Socked away in an investment account to be used for the future? Or a little of column A and a little of column B?”
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