First Friday of the Month (still dyor)
After a week,
YTD AGG (USD bond market) = -1.00%
YTD SPY (S&P 500) = -1.87%
The notable thing is that this has occurred despite the January effect, when more inflows occur than at any point in a year. Nevertheless, sellers have outpaced the buyers. Notably, it is very logical that some of the proceeds from the sales of stocks has gone into bonds, and despite this, AGG (USD bond market) is lower, and that both stocks and bonds are lower, and unaccompanied by sharp US foreign exchange rate movement.
As stated a couple of days ago, all eyes on 1.75%, now breached. Hmm.
By the way, this is the price of anything, literally. So if the letter i = interest rates, and interest rates go higher, guess what? If R (rents, revenues, positive cash flows) cannot make up the difference, then the value (NPV) is lower.
Mick’s wrong, time isn’t on your side. You could be 30 or 70, principle still applies. The formula also tells you, as t goes up, the value (NPV) goes down, “a dollar today is worth more than a dollar tomorrow.” That is vastly oversimplifying financial matters, but yeah, Mick’s still wrong.
Health Insurance Deadline is January 15
Coverage to begin February 1. If you do not have a Life Qualifying Event later in 2022, then the deadline is in one week.
Medicare Basics
You can still adjust, perhaps.
January 1 – March 31: Enroll in Medicare if you have already passed your Initial Election Period, and did not apply for Part A or Part B, when you should have. We get asked “I am employed but will retire in July, I am 66.” Answer: If you are covered by health insurance, are a full-time employee, then the answer is no, you can wait, but be sure to
January 1 – March 31: Cancel your Medicare Advantage. You can change to Medigap, but be careful to first get accepted by Medigap, so that you do not lose health benefits that you receive (on top of Parts A & B).
January 1 – March 31: Switch from your existing Medicare Advantage to another. You have the one-time option. There can be very good reasons to do this. Here are a few examples.
Network problems
Better benefits or extra services which are valuable to you (e.g. supplemental dental)
Prescription coverage inside Medicare Advantage can vary widely, especially if there is a high-cost prescription.
Important: financial representatives cannot private approach you to suggest changes. YOU must make the outgoing inquiry.SSA Creating Medicare Issues
We are literally seeing >50% error or undue delays in processing Medicare applications at the SSA. I have spent the first three business days of the year on the phone, with people as they resolved this with the Social Security Administration.
The problems this creates:
Uncertainty. This is the worst. Let’s say you retire at 67, and that your Part A coverage began when you were 65. You complete the forms correctly (you can get them here). You have no Part B (it can be retroactively set, if and only if you have proof that you have applied in time), and that will leave you exposed entirely if you need Part B services.
Can’t enroll in Medicare Advantage. The carriers will be checking to see if you are enrolled in Part A and Part B. If your Part B is not “on,” you cannot enroll. Note that you can enroll in Part D, Part B/Part A alone (just one), is a valid combination.
To make it worse, while you wait, the nuance is that you can only select a Part D or MAPD plan ONCE when you are initially enrolling in Part B. This is creating all sorts of unintended consequences.
If it persists, then you ‘might’ have a Part D Late Enrollment Penalty problem because you can only have a 63-day lapse in creditable coverage.
Note that a paid-subscriber video has comments on 5-star plans that are not what is said in public. The comments do not contradict themselves, but it is that there is further information from the information-only locations, as stated in this interview.
Reminder: Option D (None of the the above)
The information in this Substack should never be confused with:
Someone who cares, at all, what your political beliefs are.
Someone who is here to adjudicate what is fair and what is not.
Surprise: the release of the ebook is very likely to be rushed forward. The release date on amazon.com is likely wrong. At some point this month, I would expect the ebook to be available. The reason: the supply chain problems that you may have heard about has created huge problems in the book printing industry.
It’s still my thought that the GH2Unfiltered website’s Medicare Masterclass videos, with the book, is best, because it is always easy to gloss over a single fact in the book.
Official Book Website (click here).
GH2 Benefits Professional Services (click here).