Extra help for Medicare prescription drug coverage

From SmartMedicalConsumer Wiki

If you are a Medicare beneficiary with limited income and limited resources, you may qualify for "extra help" program for Medicare prescription drug coverage.

The Extra Help is estimated to be worth an average of $3,900 per year. Benefits vary by income. For many, the extra help program eliminates premiums and annual deductibles and charges copays as low as $1.10 for generic drugs and $3.30 for brand names.

Beginning January 1, 2010, changes in the law makes more people to qualify for Extra Help with their Medicare prescription drug plan costs, benefiting those with life insurance policies and those who regularly get money from relatives to help pay household expenses.

Under the old law, applicants had to include the value of life insurance policies in calculating their assets. They also had to include as part of their income money received on a regular basis from relatives and friends to help pay household expenses.

As of Jan. 1 (under the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act):

• Life nsurance policy does no longer count as a resource ; and
• The help you receive regularly from someone else, to pay your household expenses—food, mortgage, rent, heating fuel or gas, electricity, water, and property taxes, does no longer count as income.

Income limits are $16,245 a year for singles and $21,855 for married couples living together. Assets such as stocks, bonds and bank accounts must be limited to $12,510 for singles and $25,010 for married couples. The value of homes and automobiles are excluded.

See Social Security's websit for more information.