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CMS Announces 2023 Medicare Premiums

Sep 30, 2022

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has recently published the 2023 Medicare premium and deductible costs and there's a modicum of good news for anyone who's paying the Part B premium. This year's basic Part B premium, a record-high $170.10, will be...

SSA Looks to Celebrate National Hispanic Heritage Month

Sep 16, 2022

This year’s National Hispanic Heritage Month has just begun and will run until October 15 as it has done for every year since 1988. This year’s theme is ‘Building Prosperous and Health Communities” and will be celebrated with a series of symposiums, webinars, and with...

SSA National Disability Forum Coming Soon

Sep 5, 2022

In this month’s Social Security updates, the agency has announced an up-coming forum whichwill center on working to help those experiencing homelessness access SSA benefits for whichthey may well be eligible. The pellucidly titled “Homelessness: Working with...

SSA Adds More Conditions to the Compassionate Allowance List

Aug 26, 2022

It was almost exactly a year ago that this blog announced twelve additional conditions and diseases that would be considered by Social Security to meet their criteria for Compassionate Allowances. Twelve months later another twelve conditions have been added to the...

SSA Makes Further Updates to My Social Security Accounts

Aug 19, 2022

In their on-going push to get everyone to conduct their business without having to communicate directly with anyone at the agency, Social Security has announced a couple of tweaks to the My Social Security account. If you receive Social Security benefits and need to...

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In Exile: Impending Medicaid Eligibility Denials for Non-Citizens

Emma Lazarus’ 1883 sonnet ‘The New Colossus’ was written in the same year that she established in New York the Society for the Improvement and Colonization of East European Jews; an organization designed to provide aid to refugees escaping antisemitic violence and...

Education Matters: Maintaining Child’s Benefits at 18

Much to the dismay of students and teachers, another summer vacation has come and gone and one must again spend those long hours in the classroom looking wistfully out of the window as someone whitters on about some nonsense or other. For a small but significant...

In The Loop: SSA Changes Policy on Re-routing Calls

As anyone who has been obliged to call Social Security knows, the wait time has been prohibitively long. In the last year of the Biden administration the average wait was 60 minutes, which was bad enough, but in 2025 under the present regime that had increased to a...

An August Occasion: Celebrating National ABLE Savings Day

This year August 14 marks, amongst other notable events, the 236th anniversary of the signing of the Treaty of Väräla which brought about an end to the Russo-Swedish War; exactly 124 years later the arrival of British Expeditionary Force in France saw the beginning of...

Priority Treatment: SSA Adds to the Compassionate Allowance List

A fresh press release from Social Security will provide some good news to potential beneficiaries who experience a range of disabilities. Fourteen relatively obscure conditions have been added to the agency’s Compassionate Allowance policy. The policy allows Social...

Won’t Get Food Again: SNAP Eligibility in Decline

Recent articles in The Atlantic and by NPR have highlighted the growing concern in the reduction in the number of food stamp beneficiaries over the past year. The current figure, as estimated by the Department of Agriculture, stands at around 37 million recipients,...

Hear Ye, Hear Ye: Social Security Adds New Features to MySSA Accounts

A recent press release from Social Security looked to encourage applicants who have found themselves having to appeal a denial to use a My Social Security account when working through that process. Evidently very keen on getting you on board, the agency has produced a...

Summer Break: Maryland’s SUN Bucks Program

Originally launched by Governor Wes Brown back in 2024 Maryland’s Summer Electronic Benefits Transfer program, which trades under the SUN Bucks title, is back for another year. SUN Bucks is the state’s provision to allow eligible families with children aged between 5...

Food Security: New EBT Cards Coming Soon!

Maryland’s Department of Human Resources announced last week that they would be rolling out new Electronic Benefits Transfer (EBT) cards as part of a modernization plan designed to ward off food stamp thievery. The new cards will have the same capabilities as regular...

No Going Back: Medicaid Retroactive Eligibility Span Reduced

The Budget Reconciliation Act of 2025 has provided this blog with a seemingly ceaseless font of bad news stories. Here’s another one. Currently someone applying for Medicaid can get retroactive coverage for up to three months prior to the date of application as long...