Medicare and Social Security benefits

American seniors have earned their Medicare and Social Security benefits by working hard for decades. But those benefits are at risk: Congress is considering harmful cuts to both Medicare and Social Security. Instead of cutting the benefits seniors have earned, Congress should cut wasteful spending, close tax loopholes and hold down health care costs.

Census 2010

Some common problems when
filling out U.S. census forms,
which arrive by mail beginning
Monday:March 15, 2010
Ready for the 2010 census?
Forms start arriving today
.—HOUSEHOLD AND RESIDENCE:
These are determined by where
people live or sleep most of
the time as of April 1.
Household members should
include babies born on or
before April 1, 2010, as
well as non-U.S. citizens.
The rationale is that cities
and states should receive
federal money to support
everyone who uses their public
roads, schools and other programs.
College students who live away
from home and U.S. military
personnel who live in barracks
are tallied in those places.
If you have more than one home,
completely fill out the form
for your primary residence.
For the second home, mark "0''
for number of residents and
indicate you live elsewhere.
Doing that may help avoid
costly visits from a census taker.
For divorced parents who have
shared custody of a child,
indicate where a child usually
lives. If custody is split equally,
the child's residence is where he
or she is on April 1.

—RACE AND ETHNICITY: If no box
exists that describes yourself,
or with the level of specificity
you prefer, write it in the space
marked for "other race."
For example,
some Caribbean-Americans
plan to check the box for
"black, African Am., or Negro"
and then write in their ancestry.
Multiracial people might check
several race categories or write
in "multiracial," depending on
how they self-identify.
The labels do make a difference,
because census results will be

used to redraw congressional
districts with racial and ethnic
balance.

—INTERNET OPTION: There is none.
Census officials in 2008
determined that submitting
census data through the
Internet posed too large
a risk for security breaches.
The Census Bureau is testing
Web options for 2020, but for
now information must be
provided on official forms
and mailed or submitted
to a census taker.

—"LONG FORM": This year's census
is only 10 questions. Previously,
1 in 6 households — roughly
20 million — received a
detailed census questionnaire
called the "long form" that
asked about income, disability,
commuting, education level
and other characteristics.
After 2000, the long form was
eliminated and replaced by
the American Community Survey,
which is sent to about three
million households each year.
If you get an ACS form, the
Census Bureau asks you fill
out both surveys.

—MISSING FORMS: If you don't
receive a census form,
Census Bureau director
Robert Groves advises
that people wait until
April 12 to allow time
for it to arrive. After
April 12, people may
call the census help
line at 1-866-872-6868.
In rural parts of Alaska,
census information was
collected door-to-door
starting in January.
In addition,
about 12 million
addresses, mostly in rural
areas and Gulf Coast areas
affected by Hurricane Katrina,
began receiving hand-delivered
forms on March 1.

VA HEALTH CARE

President Barack Obama recently
signed the Veterans' Emergency
Care Fairness Act of 2009. The
new law will enable the Department
of Veterans Affairs (VA) to reimburse
veterans enrolled in VA health care
for the remaining cost of emergency
treatment if the veteran has outside
insurance that only covers part of the cost.
Previously, VA could reimburse veterans or
pay outside hospitals directly only if a
veteran has no outside
health insurance.

The Health Care Reform

Lets let the Republicans PUT UP OR SHUT DOWN !!! Pass meaningful
legislation THE HEALTH CARE REFORM UP FOR VOTE
Lets let the Democrats get on with the peoples
business BRING THE
HEALTH CARE REFORM UP FOR A VOTE

The administration seems to fear a threatened
Republican senatorial
filibuster of health care reform. The Democrats
should call the
Republicans’ bluff and bring a reconciled bill
to a vote. It will pass
or be filibustered.

There is no political cost to threatening a
filibuster, but producing
one is a different thing altogether, especially
if it slows down or
stops other important work. The electorate,
which by and large has
never experienced a filibuster, will get a
great civics lesson about
the arcane and outmoded operations of the Senate and may press for
reforms.

Obsessive media attention to the filibuster will illuminate Republican
obstructionism and the importance of health care reform.
--
Howard McGowan
MaldenSenior

covering illegal imigrants

Hospitals are required to screen and treat all those who arrive at their emergency rooms. But they receive only partial compensation for illegal immigrants, through emergency Medicaid and, for the last few years, through Section 1011 of the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003, a program that expired in October. That partial coverage ends when the patient is stabilized.

But hospitals are also required to discharge safely patients who need continuing care, leading to their quandary: they generally cannot find nursing homes to accept illegal immigrants, or legal ones with less than five years' residency, because long-term care is not covered by emergency Medicaid.