All posts by Christian Colon

Get The Most Out of Medicare

 

 

 

 

 

 

The throwback photo shows President Lyndon Johnson signing the Medicare bill into law with former President Harry Truman beside him.  Vice President Hubert Humphrey stands in the back between Lady Bird Johnson in blue,  Bess Truman in yellow.

Medicare turns 50 years old on July 30, 2015 and that’s old enough for most of us to take it for granted.  We automatically assume when we turn 65 we’ll enroll in a system that allows us to get the health care we need as we age, when we need it.

But this wasn’t always so. Before Medicare more than fifty percent of people over 65 had no health insurance.

Photo by Cecil Strougton.
Photo by Cecil Stroughton.

It took decades of political wrangling and many failed attempts before President Johnson successfully pushed Congress to enact a program that provided health insurance for all older Americans.

 

President Harry Truman and President Lyndon Johnson

Harry and Bess Truman were the first to sign up for Medicare.

Harry Truman card

 

 

 

 

 

Integrated Segregated Hospitals

Medicare immediately changed the healthcare landscape and, in 1965, forced hospitals to integrate patient care and staff, if they wanted to get Medicare money.

 

Since then, Medicare evolved.  It added coverage for the disabled under 65, prescription drug coverage, required hospital ER’s to treat all patients regardless of insurance status, added hospice and skilled nursing care and therapy, and it continues to try to clarify policies and control costs.

Family Doctor

That’s all good news, and additional good news comes from the trustees of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS).

They report that the Medicare trust fund will have enough money until at least 2030. That’s 13 years longer than projected in 2009, before Obamacare, or the Affordable Care Act, put money into the system and began a series of cost-saving measures.

So take advantage of the benefits.

GET THE MOST OUT OF MEDICARE

If you turn 65 this year or have a friend or relative who will, make sure you, or they, sign up for Medicare in a timely way, or you will face penalties.

Medicare’s relatively complicated system and requirements for signing up can get confusing.

Everyone gets an automatic enrollment in Medicare for hospitalization and nursing home care.

But what about doctors and the rest?

Medicare Part B covers doctors’ care, routine visits and preventative care and you must sign up for that separately if you are not working full-time at a place that provides coverage. COBRA and a spouse’s health insurance don’t count.

READ MORE

You have a window before you turn 65 and a short window after to enroll in a Medicare Part B. If you don’t you will pay a penalty and Medicare will cost you more for the rest of your life.

Right now, Happy Birthday Medicare!

Courtesy Pixabay
Courtesy Pixabay

 

I Want My Faith Restored

 

by Christian Colon

I fear for the lives of my friends and my family. One day any one of us could find ourselves a target of racial profiling. Mike Brown, Eric Garner, Akai Gurley, Tamir Rice. Like them, we could go from being a person to a name on a list. It hurts to know that we live in a time where you can watch a man get murdered and a grand jury won’t call it a crime.

Didn’t they protest in Selma, and Washington, D.C. fifty years ago so that we wouldn’t have to march in the 21st Century?  Teachers told us the Civil Rights Movement achieved great change, and I believed it and in American racial solidarity.

But when I became a teenager and ventured out beyond school and my community in Brooklyn and New York City, I learned that racial tension still exists and that we get judged and profiled on the basis of our color and ethnicity.

The grand jury decisions in the Michael Brown and Eric Garner cases  brought this home in a powerful way.

I’m a light-skinned 23-year-old Hispanic and I know that people don’t necessarily see me as a threat. I’m less likely to get targeted and stopped by police. But I do not identify as white person.

Growing up, my family didn’t make racial distinctions. I was entrenched in diversity at my public school in Brooklyn. My mother’s parents emigrated from Cuba and my dad’s from Puerto Rico. They did not allow me to adopt an “us vs. them” mentality, because they faced prejudice when they grew up.

Our family understands Blacks and Hispanics share a history of discrimination, poverty and inequality. People of color live in some of the roughest, most crime-ridden neighborhoods in the country.  Many Hispanics are black, or have black family members and the same blood runs through our veins. People of color inherit more than just physical traits. The long and dark history of racial disparity marks our DNA.

I am proud of my Hispanic heritage, but I’m also a proud American. Yet, I will never be viewed on equal footing as the Americans depicted in Normal Rockwell paintings. I will never be as American as apple pie.

So even though I am American, I am still an outsider in the country I call my home.

This art project by Shirin Barghi really got to me. She uses the last  words of young black men killed by police. The work dropped my heart into my stomach. It reminded me that one day, my son or daughter, a cousin, nephew, niece or friend’s final words might end up in a work of art that commemorates their lives.

I want my faith restored.

 

And Read Sindy Nanclares

And Read Courtney Knuckles 

And Read Alyssa Andrews