Every year during open enrollment, I warn people about the problems of signing up for a Medicare Advantage plan. Instead of getting health care through Medicare, with Medicare Advantage private organizations provide the service. It can be offered through an insurance company, an HMO, or a preferred provider organization. Read more →

Every year during open enrollment for Medicare Advantage plans, I write about them. Why? The plans are widely hyped, and older adults may switch to the plans and lose coverage. What’s Medicare Advantage? It’s a way to combine Original Medicare and a supplemental or medigap policy. Read more →

On the day when everyone makes jokes, remember not to make tasteless or inappropriate jokes about people, especially about how people look or their illnesses. Last night on “The Late Show,” Stephen Colbert had a sketch about women with “lesser-celebrated” accomplishments for Women’s History Month. Read more →

March is Women’s History Month. It’s difficult to figure out what to write. Women have made great strides in recent decades. However, so much remains to be done. And, what needs to be undertaken now and going forward so that women are include in the history of the United States and the world? Read more →

It’s a question that comes up frequently these days. Where’s a cheaper place to live? Using safety, affordability, quality of life, health-related factors, and more than 40 other categories, WalletHub, a personal finance website, compared the 50 states to help retirees find the best way to retire. Read more →

The website, covidtests.gov, where Americans can order four free covid-19 tests is up and running Tuesday, one day early. To help ensure people have tests on hand if a need arises, the Biden administration is purchasing one billion at-home, rapid covid-19 tests. Read more →

Martin Luther King Jr. was such a transformational leader. Over the years, I’ve written more than a dozen articles for Martin Luther King Jr. Day. They included his most famous quotes, how a day to celebrate King was finally approved, and how it’s a day of service, not a day off. Read more →

Hundreds of thousands of consumers are having problems getting credit bureaus to correct their credit reports, an analysis by the Consumer Financial Protection Bureau shows. Consumers submitted more than 700,000 complaints to the CFPB about Equifax, Experian, and TransUnion from January 2020 through September 2021. Read more →

Since I wrote an article recently on the top consumer and personal finance stories of 2021, I was interested in a list offered by U.S. PIRG on the progress made in health, climate, and consumer issues in 2021. U.S. PIRG, a public interest research group, and its state partners worked on or supported many of these issues. Read more →

Vyera Pharmaceuticals and a former CEO, Kevin Mulleady, entered into an agreement Tuesday with the New York Attorney General’s Office to end anticompetitive behavior in the pricing of a drug to treat toxoplasmosis. The agreement also requires the company to pay up to $40 million and bans Mulleady from the pharmaceutical industry for seven years. Read more →