Medicare and Foreclosure

Ilyce Glink Radio Show Notes November 14, 2010

Today on the Ilyce Glink show we had two great guests. In the first hour, award-winning journalist, columnist and author Mark Miller joined us to talk about Medicare, Medicare Advantage and open enrollment season.

In the second hour, Sean O’Toole, a foreclosure investor and founder of ForeclosureRadar.com, joined us to discuss what’s happening with foreclosures all over the country. It was a terrific discussion. Some highlights of the shows follow.

Mark Miller, RetirementRevised.com

This time of year, there are decisions you need to make. If you’re enrolled in a managed care option, like Medicare Advantage, you’ll have from November 15 (tomorrow) through December 13th to make your decision about next year’s health care plan, but your mailboxes are probably filling up right now.

Mark thinks it’s a good idea to shop your plan each year because you could save hundreds or thousands of dollars. There are a couple of ways to do that:

Medicare.gov. Use the Plan Finder

Put in your Medicare number and specific prescription information and the site will come back with a list of plans that are available to you in your area.

You can also try your State’s health insurance program. this is a nonprofit that gets partial funding from Medicare. They’ll help you figure out the different plans.

For a small fee of $200 to $300, you can work with a for-profit company that helps figure out the plan information also.

If you sign up for a plan and then realize it’s a mistake, you can make some changes to your coverage from January 1 to February 15, 2011. But the timeframe is short and will get shorter in the next few years.

Extra Help Programs

If you as an individual earn $16,000 or up to $22,000 as a married couple, you might qualify for a 100 percent prescription drug subsidy. You should have received something form Social Security if you qualify, but if you didn’t, contact the Social Security Administration.

Helpful Links and Resources from Mark Miller, RetirementRevised.com:

Medicare Plan Finder – an authoritative tool at the Medicare website for selecting plans

State Health Insurance Assistance Programs (SHIPs) – a network of non-profits providing free Medicare counseling services.

Medicare Rights Center – non-profit, free plan selection assistance via telephone (toll-free) 1-800-333-4114

Allsup – example of a for-profit company that can help for a fee

Sean O’Toole, ForeclosureRadar.com and ForeclosureTruth.com

Sean dropped out of college at 18 and build and sold several software companies. He then started buying foreclosures to fix and flip, and would up buying about 150 foreclosures, getting out before the collapse. He then started ForeclosureRadar.com to provide indepth information about foreclosures to investors.

Sean believes that the banks are delaying putting all of the folks through foreclosure because of a “pray and delay” mentality. They’re delaying foreclosure while praying everything is going to somehow turn out okay. He suspects that the QE2 (second round of quantitative easing) is happening because the banks can’t afford to write off all of the debt they have.

We had a great conversation. Listen to the whole show to find out more, and be sure to start reading Sean’s blog, ForeclosureTruth.com

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