Blues

True. And you're not even getting into the quagmire that is Medicare Advantage. Although Joe Namath assures me that I can get excellent coverage, including rides to the doctor's office, for zero dollars, so maybe that's not all that complicated after all. Back to the "Medicare for all" cry--all that does it indicate how hopelessly screwed up insurance for non-seniors is, if this Medicare mess is seen as so much better.

If you read the Minnesota self-proving affidavit, you'll see that the witnesses have to be sworn in and make declarations to the notary. It's more than the notary just verifying the identity of a person signing his name, like on real estate documents. (Note that laws about self-proving affidavits vary depending on the state; they work as designed in some states, they have no effect in some states, and they don't accomplish anything unique in some states.) Yikes. Texas wills don't need a self-proving affidavit to be valid (if they otherwise meet the statutory requirements for a valid will), but a properly executed self-proving affidavit will make the probate process much easier (the main benefit), and might provide some evidence about the testator's mental capability if someone challenges the will (depending on the circumstances). I'm not familiar with software used to write wills, but I've seen some of the effects. Like a couple of grandkids being handed hundreds of thousands of dollars on their 18th birthday because their grandfather included them as beneficiaries in his will when they were minors, without setting up trusts for the bequests. Did he intend to do that (most people would not), or did he just not realize that's what would happen? We'll never know, but if a lawyer had written the will, we could be pretty sure that grandpa had been warned about how outright bequests to minors work, and he chose to do it anyway. But don't think it's just moneyed folks who have problems. I have a friend whose family was almost torn apart over a washer/dryer that still had payments owed on it.

The woman who is credited with popularizing the trend (with a cake, and reporting on it in her blog in 2008) is now disavowing it. In the irony department, according to an interview with the mother on The Daily Show, the girl whose gender started all this doesn't appear to be conforming to gender norms.

The email they sent you mentioned proof of residency if you wanted your renewal to be a REAL ID, and you took two pieces of mail. What I don't understand is someone in Wisconsin needs proof of residency to get a REAL ID when renewing his driver's license, while a person in Texas doesn't. It's a federal law, so I would think complying with it would be the same in all states.

What I don't understand is why he was treating the toilet paper differently from what he was, uh, using the toilet paper for. Which makes me think he was just leaving it wherever it landed instead of burying it or packing it out. Nice. An AP story also says this: Heh. He's got a unique name, which will live forever in internet searches.

You could strike though it so it's still visible, and then add "I was wrong--see below" or something. That way it's not the final word for people who are too lazy to scroll down, or who look for outrage and see that and start spreading it themselves without bothering to verify it.

Oh, I know there's an open season in which you can change plans. But the worst that can happen is that on January 2, and not in the middle of the year, you are prescribed a very expensive drug that isn't covered by your plan. Depending on the price, it could be a lot more than just limping along, and possibly financially ruinous. All because you didn't predict something you have no way of predicting. This has been my biggest disappointment with Medicare. I bet the vast vast majority of people who aren't on Medicare have no idea how complicated it is, that there are so many choices you have to make, and that the expected basis for selecting a drug plan is what drugs you're currently on even though that probably won't be the extent of the drugs you are prescribed for the next year, so you're flying blind on those when you pick your plan. When I hear "Medicare for all," my reaction is now "Watch out what you ask for." I'll say again that that's a ridiculous system because those drugs can change. Or if someone isn't on any drugs, but definitely wants to have coverage if he get sick and is prescribed drugs. Which plan should that person pick?

In Texas, wills don't have to be notarized to be valid. But if a Texas will includes a self-proving affidavit, that affidavit does have to be notarized. There are different types of notarization. The kind you get at a UPS store is just the notary verifying the identity of the person signing the document. The self-proving affidavit in a will requires more than that, including witnesses who also sign the will and swear to certain facts. When a lawyer prepares a will, the fee should include the lawyer supervising the will execution ceremony, to ensure that the required formalities are done correctly. The lawyer will also provide witnesses and a notary. I'd check with the lawyer who wrote the will and find out what the lawyer suggests for having the wills executed if you're not currently in Texas. It's not the same as going to the UPS store and showing your driver's license and signing a document.

I assume that whatever the Texas DPS employee uses to issue the license has boxes to be checked or something like that to indicate compliance with the REAL ID requirements. I know of another person who got a REAL ID renewal in a Texas different city who also never submitted any residency documents, but I honestly can't remember if a birth certificate was involved. But I do know that the one done last year required only the birth certificate. This was in a random small Texas town, and the person renewing was not a local. The clerk actually seemed kind of pleased to turn him away, saying, "You have to have your birth certificate." What the clerk didn't know was that the person renewing had his house and all his possessions parked along the curb right down the street, so he was back with his birth certificate in five minutes. So actually, this clerk seemed like the type to make people jump through every hoop, or maybe just people he didn't know. But I sure had the impression that he wasn't letting this person renewing get away with anything, and all that was required was a birth certificate.

She is from Michigan, but may be considering a change of state for domicile. It is possible that MI has something similar so she should definitely look into that. Whether Michigan or Minnesota, the OP said they want to "take off next year," which presumably means travel. I highly doubt that a plan funded by a particular state for its residents would provide coverage outside that state. To the OP: Go to this thread and at the bottom of page 3, starting in August, there is a series of posts from people dealing with your situation: https://www.rvnetwork.com/topic/138198-rver-insurance-exchange-health-insurance/page/3/ I will be on Medicare in the not too distant future, so I vaguely follow discussions about it. One thing I've come away with is that for prescription coverage, you get a plan that covers the medications you're on. But the medications you're on right now could change, and you could suddenly find yourself on a super-expensive one that isn't covered by your plan but would have if you'd picked another plan. And maybe I uniquely notice this because I'm not on any medications, so the usual method of picking a plan wouldn't apply to me. If you are on medications, then it seems like a no-brainer to pick the plan that will pay the most toward the medications you're on, and more sophisticated people will use your more thorough analysis. But none of that has anything to do with medications you don't know you'll be on later, and insurance is traditionally used to protect against unexpected events. Am I misunderstanding this? Because it seems to me to be a ridiculous way for people to pick plans.

I know what it does. What I don't understand is why the Wisconsin DMV person was telling goldenskyhook about "appropriate residency proofs" in order to get a REAL ID when he renews his Wisconsin driver's license, while in Texas all that was required to end up with a REAL ID upon renewal was a birth certificate, which doesn't even have a picture proving identity, and has nothing showing current residence.

Are you renewing your license in the next few months? If you're going to have to show proof of residency, then it would be a LOT easier to do it now, while you still have utility bills and whatnot for where you're currently living. In Texas, you can renew up to a year in advance of the expiration date. If that's possible, I'd do it. You'll have to use your current address and not your daughter's (so it will match the documentation), but that's no big deal. You can change the address upon your move, or just let it be stale. They'll mail the new license to your current address, so do it far enough in advance that you can receive it there. I don't understand this Real ID thing. The Texas driver's license I'm looking at has the star on it that indicates it's a Real ID, but the holder never had to produce any documentation other than a birth certificate when getting the renewal that produced the star on the license. You should get your Escapees address immediately, and start giving individual changes of address to places you want to use that address. There's no reason to wait on that, it will lessen the amount of mail your daughter gets, and it might be more reliable than a blanket change of address form with the post office. Word. I remember one year I was there. On May 1 I decided it was time to go out without wearing long underwear. On May 2, I put it back on.

I think Greg meant finding a smaller town near a big city, not a physically smaller post office in the city. Like the example he gave--using Vail instead of Tucson. Vail is its own town on the far southeastern edge of Tucson. I checked online using Barbara's address lookup method and it gives a general delivery address for Vail, so you'd think all you'd have to do is have the mail sent there. But as Greg found out, they require you to fill out a form in advance (which happened to me once). That illustrates the need to call to confirm. I ask, "Do you accept general delivery mail?" If they say yes, then I ask, "What address should I use?" I used to just ask what zip code, but have changed to asking for the full address, even though it's probably just "general delivery." I figure this shows that at least the office is aware of general delivery and most likely will accept it and will tell me at that point if I need to set it up in advance. It can be a real trial getting someone to answer the phone, but I'm not going to do it again without a person at that post office telling me it's okay. I think requiring a form for general delivery is an anomaly, but these days, when it's gotten so much harder to just flit about without plans, I want as much assurance as I can get that my mail isn't going to throw a big wrench into things.

Texas does recognize common-law marriages, but there are elements that are required to establish a common-law marriage. One of them is representing yourselves as a married couple. If a couple doesn't want to be common-law married in Texas, all they have to do is never represent themselves as being married. Also, contrary to what most people believe, a common-law marriage is never imposed on a couple based only on how long they have lived together. Never. In fact, there is no specified length of cohabitation, either minimum or maximum, among the requirements. But there always has to be holding out as a married couple, and people who claim a common-law marriage was forced on them against their will conveniently "forget" that they filed a tax return as married filing jointly for a tax advantage, or listed the other person as a "spouse" in order to get insurance, or some other situation where saying they were married worked to their advantage. Their own actions establish the common-law marriage. I hope you get a favorable answer from them. I wouldn't have gone that route. Of course they can't force you to rent or buy a home, but a random DMV employee can say you can't use your daughter's address, even though there's likely no law that actually says that. It seems to me your case is a lot clearer than setting up domicile at an Escapees mail service, since you're maintaining your residency in Wisconsin and not picking a new state because of tax advantages, for example. Why wouldn't you be able to move into your daughter's house and then travel a whole bunch? The only problem I can fathom is your Medicare supplement provider, because some health insurance companies do have rules about actually living where you get your policy, and from a practical standpoint, some insurance plans don't cover people outside a given geographic region. The problem is that if you ask, you might get an answer you don't want. But in this case, it's not a matter of "why wouldn't you be able to do it," as it is with maintaining your Wisconsin domicile. In the case of insurance, you're dealing with a contract and making representations to the insurance company. And the only way you'll know it didn't work is when they deny a claim. So it's probably a good idea to get that one squared away, but you might want to think about how you present what you're doing. An insurance company might view the same situation differently depending on how it's described, like if a person wants to do a lot of traveling and moves out of his own house and in with his daughter to not have to keep up a house and to lower his expenses, versus moving into the RV to get out of Wisconsin and travel for the rest of his life. Tell the truth, obviously (insurance companies really don't like being lied to), but perhaps give some thought to how the narrative goes. Vehicle insurance doesn't present the same challenges. You do need to change yours to a "fulltimer" policy, though. Only a limited number of companies offer that coverage, and they all engage in the fiction of a garaging address in those policies because fulltimers don't have an address where the vehicle actually "lives." So you don't have the messiness of not actually having the vehicle at that location, because they acknowledge they know what you're doing when they issue the fulltimer policy.

Here's what shows up when I type "general delivery" as the street address for Westminster, Colorado. For the record, the second one matches what I was told to use when I'd called just asking for the address (i.e., not what I would have guessed).

I found a post office on the USPS website that listed general delivery among its services. I typically call to confirm, but nobody ever answered the phone. But the website said general delivery and I checked other post offices nearby and they didn't say general delivery, so I assumed the "general delivery" was accurate and not just applied to every location. So I had it sent to the one that listed general delivery among its services. I showed up to pick it up and they said they don't accept general delivery. The package went to the main post office in Denver. Great. But when I went there to pick it up, turns out they held it for two days before returning it to the sender. I insisted on an explanation for holding it only two days, and nobody could explain it, and I was promised a call from a supervisor, who of course didn't call. I tried your method for the post office that STILL says on the website it accepts general delivery but actually doesn't (using "look up a zip code") and it says "general delivery" isn't a valid address. Then I tried it for a post office I know accepts general delivery (also in the Denver metro area), and believe it or not, it gave TWO addresses--both "general delivery" but with different zip codes. I recognized the one I'd used before (given to me when I called), but if I didn't, which should I use? Arrrrgggghhhh. So I'm going back to always calling to confirm. I've had some want me to use the street address of the post office in addition to "general delivery." And once when I didn't call, I got chastised by a tiny post office in Kansas because I hadn't alerted them that I was having something sent via general delivery. I call and ask if they accept general delivery, and then ask what address I should use. I used to ask just for the zip code, but I'm not confident that's enough any more.

The COVID stimulus isn't included in modified adjusted gross income (MAGI) for purposes of qualifying for or calculating subsidies. The healthcare.gov site has a MAGI section here . There's a list of types of income and whether they're included in MAGI, and "Economic Impact/Stimulus Payments (come from the IRS as a result of the COVID-19 emergency)" says "no." And just for the sake of completeness--regular unemployment benefits are included in MAGI, as are the supplemental COVID unemployment benefits (the $600/week extra, and any more of that type that gets approved).

Sounds like you went up the ladder and over the cliff. The subsidy cliff is real, and real dangerous. I don't have that problem, but I've thought about it. One option is to not take any premium tax credit (subsidy) in advance, and instead pay the premiums yourself and get the tax credit applied and refunded (if you're eligible) when you file your income tax return. That way the only surprise at tax time will be a pleasant one. The problem is that without the subsidy, an ACA plan can be really expensive, and it's possible a person wouldn't want that policy if he has to pay 100% of the premium. He might choose a less expensive option that provides less coverage and isn't eligible for a subsidy, but at least he knows all the numbers (premium and coverage) in advance, and they're not going to change. It's a real dilemma. Kind of makes you want to jump off a cliff, and I don't mean the subsidy cliff. But pick the cliff carefully because you don't want to survive it, or you'll wish you had bought better insurance.

It wasn't that their income was higher than they had estimated--it's that their income was greater than or equal to 400% of the federal poverty line. People whose income is greater than or equal to 400% of the federal poverty line aren't eligible for a subsidy. If they claim/take a subsidy based on a claimed/estimated income and it turns out they weren't eligible for the subsidy when they file their income tax return used in the reconciliation calculations, the government will make them pay back all of the subsidy they weren't eligible for. That must be what happened to the people you're thinking of, if they had to pay $18,000, and that's the only situation where someone will have to pay back all of their subsidy--filing an income tax return that has a modified adjusted gross income that exceeds the limit for qualifying for a subsidy. Claiming/taking a subsidy that's more than what you end up being eligible for does have repayment requirements, but it's just the difference between what you claimed/took and what you were actually eligible for based on the income tax return used for reconciliation. And actually, that's what the person who ends up not qualifying for a subsidy is paying--the difference between the subsidy they received and the subsidy they were entitled to (which in their case is zero), which means they pay back the entire subsidy. Just for clarity of terminology, there is no ACA network. And there can be PPO or EPO plans that are geographically limited. They are PPO or EPO in that you don't have to have a referral from a primary care doctor to see a specialist, but their network of providers is limited to a specific area. I agree that some of them don't fully understand what they're selling, which is obviously not acceptable. But there appear to be plenty who know full well what they're selling but don't tell the buyer everything they know, which is also unacceptable. I'd recommend HealthSherpa. If someone is interested only in ACA plans on the exchange, then HealthSherpa or Healthcare.gov is the way to go. However, if someone isn't eligible for a subsidy, the Costco site might have a lead on other providers. For example, I used an Austin zip code and found plans by a company called Decent. They are not eligible for a subsidy, and they don't have a nationwide network, but they do exist, and I'd never heard of them. Now, I have no idea why the Costco insurance site includes the Decent plans. Probably because they have a financial arrangement, which means there are probably plans out there that Costco insurance site doesn't include. And I have to say that I'm not impressed with the Costco site. In the FAQs, it says that there are penalties if a person doesn't have health insurance. I question everything on the site if they don't get that right. Then again, it's in their interest for people to believe they have to buy insurance. So either it's sloppy website maintenance (which doesn't make me trust what's on the rest of the site--how do I know that haven't updated other parts, either?), or it's intentionally misleading (possibly disguised as sloppy website maintenance), which also doesn't make me trust what's on the rest of the site.

With all due respect, it sounds like you had doubts whether it was true. Wouldn't it be better to do research yourself to verify it before posting it? You could have found out the same thing 2gypsies did, and not participated in fanning the flames.

How long will this go on? My conclusion is quite a while yet, based on the cell-phone tracking of visitors to Las Vegas. https://www.propublica.org/article/cellphone-data-shows-how-las-vegas-is-gambling-with-lives-across-the-country Interesting maps showing where the visitors spread out to. Plus photos inside casinos, where we see one slot-machine woman with her mask below her mouth, and a woman cleaning a plexiglas shield with her mask below her nose. But she's wearing gloves, so we can all rest easy.

That site doesn't state how they compile their data. It says: It looks to me like they put all Walmart locations on there with a green dot, and it stays a green dot unless it's changed to red because someone submits a report saying overnight parking isn't permitted. So a green dot means only that the location exists and overnight parking isn't known to be prohibited. That's not the same as saying it's known to be allowed.

The article is based on data that is on a website that lists places where overnight parking is or is not allowed. It's based on reports from subscribers. He says in 2010, 78% of Walmarts allowed overnight parking, and now it's 58%. A Walmart representative said it doesn't track this data.

The cutoff is a little over $68,000 annual modified adjusted gross income (be sure to use that number and not just W-2 wages or whatever, and it's not the "adjusted gross income" that appears on your tax return). Be aware that if you end up going over that in a year that you have received the subsidy to lower your premium (advance payment of the premium tax credit), you have to pay back all of the subsidy you received. I don't know what kind of income you're going to have, but you may have to "manage" it, especially if you're that close to the cliff (it's considered a cliff because a $1 difference in income can be the difference between qualifying for a hefty subsidy and no subsidy at all). You should also get some advice on how to calculate your income if enrolling other than during open enrollment, especially if your income is going to change a lot because your wife stops working at the point you're getting the insurance and subsidy. You should double-check to verify not only that your Austin doctor takes Blue Cross, but that the practice is part of the HMO for a policy issued in Livingston. I don't know if Blue Cross's HMO is state-wide or if it has different ones for different regions. I hope you didn't use the link that theodore6WB posted. I tried it and it was a real cesspool. I'm glad I always give fake phone numbers and email addresses on sites like that when trying to find out if they're going to offer any actual information.

Heh. When I was directing questions at the insurance agent who showed up in this thread, someone PMed me and suggested I contact the agent directly and ask the questions. No way I'm giving an insurance agent my phone number or email address! That's not my experience. Or maybe we define a dime's worth of information differently. If you go to https://www.healthcare.gov/see-plans/#/ you can enter your zip code and then answer questions about your age and your wife's age, etc. When you get to the screen about income, you can go down to the bottom to SKIP THESE QUESTIONS click on SEE PLANS NOW and look at all the plans available to you. For each plan, you can click on PLAN DETAILS and it will give you, well, details about the plan. So you'll know the premium, deductible, copays, out-of-pocket maximum, and in the plan details, specifics about some of the coverage. Since they're all ACA plans, you'll generally be comparing apples to apples. And you can get even more information by clicking on PLAN DOCUMENTS and then SUMMARY OF BENEFITS. That's pretty detailed, and will show things like whether hearing aids are covered (not required under the ACA). None of this requires signing up or revealing anything other than zip code and ages, and certainly not submitting any documents. The problem, however, is that if you're using an Escapees address, the only choices on the ACA Exchange are HMOs, which are ill-suited for traveling fulltimers. Other counties in Texas offer PPOs on the Exchange, but with only a local network. Not a good choice for a traveling fulltimer, either. Some counties offer Ambetter on the Exchange, which has EPO plans. They do not say they offer access to a nationwide network, but they do business in several states: https://www.ambetterhealth.com/health-plans/select-your-state.html What I don't know is whether someone with an Ambetter EPO plan issued in Texas can use providers in, say, Arizona, and be considered in-network. If so, then that might be an option for you (assuming you could change your domicile to a Texas county that offers Ambetter--Polk County doesn't) depending on where you plan to travel. I'd definitely get it in writing that you're considered in-network in states where Ambetter does business other than Texas. However, I just did this for Ambetter in Austin (Travis County) on the Exchange, and the premium was over $1500/month for a couple of people in their 60s. If your wife's COBRA really is about $1200 and IF it provides access to a nationwide network, then you should very seriously consider COBRA if it's decent insurance. The health insurance landscape is very unsettled (for example, more than two weeks ago, the president said on Fox News that he'd be signing a new health care plan within two weeks; not a peep since then). COBRA would get you to Medicare, and I assume your wife could continue COBRA after that, until her eligibility expires. As Zulu pointed out, depending on your income, you could get a subsidy for a plan on the Exchange. It's conceivable, for example, that depending on your income, you could get a very low cost HMO plan on the Exchange with your Livingston address, and plan to use it only for emergencies, which would be covered if you're out of the network. It would make me uneasy because I've never gotten a good answer on when an "emergency" stops and you're suddenly out of network, but if it's very low cost because of a subsidy, it might be an alternative, and you can either travel back to Livingston for routine care, or pay for it out-of-pocket elsewhere. Something to think about. One other random thought is that if you do qualify for a very low-cost HMO plan because of a subsidy, you could get that and also get an indemnity plan to help defray your out-of-pocket expenses (which is really what indemnity plans are designed for). Also, something I have not been able to find out is whether any insurance company in Texas offers a PPO plan with a nationwide network. I know that no insurance company offers one on the Exchange, but there are plenty of plans that aren't on the Exchange, and they might be ACA-compliant. I'd be surprised if any could compete with $1200/month COBRA coverage, though (if the COBRA plan works for a traveling fulltimer). But I'd love to know if anyone has run across a non-Exchange PPO with a nationwide network available to Texas residents, just to know they exist, because it could be an option for someone who doesn't qualify for a subsidy and therefore doesn't need to buy a plan on the Exchange. So far, I haven't seen any confirmation that they exist. The real problem with indemnity plans is that people sign up for them without realizing they're not major medical insurance as most people understand major medical insurance. In my reading on them, I've concluded that they were originally a way to be compensated for things like lost wages if you get sick--they were marketed to high-income people like doctors, to protect their income if they can't work due to illness. And these days, they can be a way to help cover copays and other out-of-pocket expenses that occur even when someone has insurance. But the marketing on them doesn't make that clear, so people buy them not understanding what they actually are. You could say that's the fault of the consumer, but I know what it's taken for ME to get up to speed on health insurance options, and I'm pretty smart and have received training in reading fine print and have the time and desire to devote to this. The vast majority of people don't have any of this, and are at the mercy of what a salesmen on commission tell them. So the main problem with them is knowing what you're buying. And in that vein, I'll point out that indemnity plans are unlike ACA plans in that they can refuse you for pre-existing conditions (also known as "underwriting," I believe), or maybe limit the care you can receive for those conditions (and possibly retroactively cancel the policy if it's deemed that you didn't divulge the appropriate information). And they can have annual and/or lifetime limits; ACA plans can't. It would behoove anyone considering getting an indemnity plan to read the entire contract carefully, because from what I understand, there are no "standards" like there are for ACA plans, so you can't assume anything. Just to clarify--not all PPO plans work across the whole country. Many (and more each year) are for only a local network, and don't provide any coverage out-of-network at all, except for emergencies. In that case, the only advantage over an HMO is that you don't need a referral to see a specialist. Not only that, a while back I looked at balance-billing protections for various states, and sometimes people with an HMO are protected from balance billing but people with a PPO aren't. So in the case of being protected from balance billing, it could be that an HMO is preferable to a PPO.