Beneficiaries

Filling out financial aid forms is difficult enough, but it can be particularly challenging for today's blended families. Ask Bill from Elkton. Bill is divorced and his two daughters live with his ex. He lives with his second wife and her son. He's working on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form for his stepson. Bill says it looks like his income will be included on his stepson's FAFSA along with the income of the boy's father. "This seems like a double whammy," he says.

Use what's left of the fall to think carefully about your year-end finances. Some tasks can't wait until the new year. And if you do wait, you could miss out on some great financial savings. Here's a checklist to get you started:Check out flexible-spending arrangements:These accounts, offered by some employers, allow workers to use pretax dollars to cover medical expenses and dependent-care costs.Employees determine how much money to contribute to the account, based on their expected expenses during the plan year.

WASHINGTON -- A federal appeals court has ruled that Medicare patients are entitled to immediate hearings and other protections when they are denied care by health maintenance organizations.In ruling on a nationwide class action suit, the court said that many HMOs had failed to provide adequate explanations for the denial of benefits and had failed to inform patients of their appeal rights.The decision, issued Wednesday by the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals in San Francisco, was a major victory for consumers.

Just a year ago, Washington policy-makers looked to managed care as one of the best solutions to the rising costs of Medicare.Even as it reduced Medicare spending by $115 billion over the next five years, the Balanced Budget Act of 1997 envisioned that the number of beneficiaries enrolled in managed care would nearly double during the same period, to around 27 percent of all seniors.Today, there are signs that the government's goal of quickly increasing the number of health plans available to seniors was overly ambitious.

MEDICARE LEGISLATION crafted in a rare show of bipartisan amity on Capitol Hill will not solve the long-range financial problems expected when 76 million baby boomers start to hit retirement age in 2011. But as a short-term solution to the political paralysis that has afflicted federal health care for the elderly, it is a remarkable bit of statecraft deserving of swift passage.It will save $115 billion in projected Medicare costs over a five year period, a sum crucial to the achievement of a balanced budget in 2002.

WASHINGTON -- Having failed to draw President Clinton into the politically treacherous effort to curb Medicare spending, House Speaker Newt Gingrich said yesterday that congressional Republicans would take on the task alone as part of their effort to balance the budget."

WASHINGTON -- House Republicans, still unable to agree on details of a plan to save $270 billion from Medicare over seven years, issued a general blueprint yesterday calling for expanded choices for beneficiaries, combined with tough government controls on payments to hospitals, doctors and health providers.The GOP outline expressed confidence that millions of Medicare beneficiaries will save government revenue by moving into health maintenance organizations and other forms of managed care.

The much-publicized contention of starlet Anna Nicole Smith that she didn't receive the financial riches she deserved after the death of her billionaire husband may have been the only time this year many U.S. households used the word "will."Not only do most families avoid talking about wills, they usually never get around to making them. Seventy percent of Americans die without ever writing one.Yet a well-executed will gives important control over eventual distribution of property. You can also choose the person who will carry out the administration of your estate.

Among the many bills signed into law last week by Gov. William Donald Schaefer was House Bill 825, known by the banking and investment industry as the "Prudent Investor Rule," which certainly sounds innocuous enough.The law, which takes effect Oct. 1, lays out broad guidelines defining how fiduciaries should act when investing money for someone else.The bill calls for investors to act with such motherhood and apple pie values as "reasonable care, skill and caution," "in the best interests of the beneficiaries," and "incur only costs that are reasonable.

WASHINGTON -- Despite a federal law intended to protect Medicare patients against excessive doctors' bills, many patients have been overcharged and have been unable to get refunds or assistance from the government, say state insurance commissioners and the beneficiaries themselves.Part of the problem is that, for more than a year, Medicare officials have used inaccurate, misleading language on forms sent to beneficiaries who filed claims. After a reporter made inquiries, the officials promised late last week to correct these forms and to be more diligent in monitoring the billing practices of doctors.

Investors and economists worry about higher inflation, but the more immediate concern is inflation that's flat or even negative. Retirement contributions, Social Security and pension checks, as well as certain tax breaks, are tied to inflation. And when inflation is flat or negative - which it is for the first time since the 1950s - that could mean no increases in Social Security checks and even smaller pension checks for millions of retirees. And it could restrict the amount you can sock away in your 401(k)

Asset prices and interest rates are down, making this an opportune time for retirees to think about estate planning. Trouble is, few people are interested. Such planning can involve divesting assets just when you're feeling the most vulnerable. Wealthy or not so wealthy, many retirees are scaling back this year on what they will do for their heirs. Wealthier families are re-examining tax strategies that involve gifts to family and charities, and retirees with more modest portfolios are reducing their help for adult children so they can preserve more of what is left of their nest eggs, financial advisers said.

Private health insurance plans that serve nearly a fourth of all Medicare beneficiaries, including more than 40,000 in Maryland, were set up under the assumption that the private companies could provide the same services as Medicare at a lower cost. Instead, many have significantly increased costs without improving care, a new analysis of the Medicare Advantage program shows. It's time for the multibillion-dollar waste to end. Congress should act early next year to reduce these payments to private insurance companies to the level of traditional Medicare.

With the nation's population graying, health professionals have grown increasingly concerned about the number of people 65 and older who drink unhealthy amounts of alcohol. A recent study published in the Journal of the American Geriatrics Society reported that 9 percent of elderly Medicare beneficiaries -- 16 percent of the men and 4 percent of the women -- engaged in unhealthy drinking. Researchers said those numbers could be conservative because they are based on self-reporting. Unhealthy drinking was defined in the study as consuming more than 30 drinks a month or drinking more than three drinks on any single day in a typical month.

When it comes to the Bush administration's strategy in Iraq, the Republican presidential candidates all seem to be auditioning for the lead in a remake of Pollyanna. Sen. John McCain crows that the Democratic presidential aspirants "continue to deny the facts on the ground that we are succeeding." Mitt Romney says, "The surge is working." Mike Huckabee agrees. Rudolph W. Giuliani boasts that he supported it from the start. Only the perennial skunk at the garden party, Ron Paul, declines to recite the catechism.

The Q: Practically everything these days can be done by yourself, from do-it-yourself home renovations to DIY investing. Reader Don McCardell of Baltimore wants to know if this DIY attitude can be applied to writing up his own last will and testament. "Do I have to hire an attorney or can I do this on my own?" McCardell said. "I was wondering if I could write something simple, get two witnesses, maybe a notary and would that be legally binding?" The A: A will is a person's declaration of how he or she wants their property disposed of after their death.

Filling out financial aid forms is difficult enough, but it can be particularly challenging for today's blended families. Ask Bill from Elkton. Bill is divorced and his two daughters live with his ex. He lives with his second wife and her son. He's working on the Free Application for Federal Student Aid form for his stepson. Bill says it looks like his income will be included on his stepson's FAFSA along with the income of the boy's father. "This seems like a double whammy," he says.

We spend countless hours and dollars in the pursuit of love. Just think of what Americans dropped on St. Valentine's Day. Too many of us, though, fail to ensure that our partner, once found, continues to benefit from our money after our death. That is, we fail to write a will and designate beneficiaries for our assets. The odds are slim you'll pass away before your first gray hair. But if you aren't prepared, you could leave it up to state law to decide how your savings, home and other valuables are divided up, not to mention potentially decide who will care for your children.

Not by accident has the pharmaceutical industry earned a reputation as one of the most powerful and effective lobbies on Capitol Hill. It's big, it's well connected and it's clever. So it should come as no surprise that the drug lobby is throwing up barriers to block Democrats from honoring their promise to use Medicare's purchasing power to negotiate lower prescription prices for retirees. What's intriguing is the industry tactic of claiming the Medicare prescription drug program is working too well to be touched.

WASHINGTON -- Federal investigators said yesterday that the Medicare prescription drug plans generally provided incomplete and inaccurate information to callers who asked questions about the new benefit. The findings, from the Government Accountability Office, a nonpartisan investigative arm of Congress, are significant because the premise of the new program is that consumers will make informed choices among dozens of competing plans. Investigators placed 900 calls to 10 of the largest companies that offer drug coverage to Medicare beneficiaries.