In December Congress passed, and President Biden signed, the Social Security Fairness Act, which will raise Social Security benefits for nearly 3 million Americans. The new law repeals the Windfall Elimination Provision Offset and the Government Pension Offset. These 2 laws coordinated and offset Social Security benefits for recipients of government pensions for federal, state…
We already knew Social Security benefits were rising 2.5% due to the Cost of Living Adjustment (COLA). We now know Medicare premiums will increase, as well, cutting into the increase for most recipients. Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) has announced the part B premium for most recipients will increase by $10.30 from $174.70…
Summer 2021 Newsletter STILL STANDING…AND PRACTICING I published the first issue of Social Security & You in Spring of 1993. Some years I’ve published more issues than others. The most recent issue was dated Spring 2019: over 2 years ago. The world was a much different place then. Especially for me. Read the full newsletter…
Spring 2019 Newsletter An Opioid Story I’ve changed his name. Let’s call him Gerald. He was a laborer. And by that I don’t mean that he just did physical work. He was a card-carrying member the Labor’s Union local. And that meant a lot to him. I represented him for Social Security disability and Michigan…
Michigan Social Security recipients, as well as those from other states, have dealt with a series of flu-like respiratory illnesses over the past few years. There was the bird flu, the swine flu, & SARS (severe acute respiratory syndrome).
The latest is MERS, an acronym for Middle-East Respiratory Syndrome. MERS belongs to the same family of illnesses as SARS.
So-called because of its origins in Saudi Arabia and elsewhere in the middle-east, MERS is a respiratory illness that begins with a flu-like fever & cough but can lead to shortness of breath, pneumonia & death.
The MERS virus has been found in camels. Officials do not know how it has spread to humans. Not everybody exposed gets sick but it has been especially deadly in the middle-east.
The first U.S. case was diagnosed in earlier in May 2014 in a man who had traveled to Indiana from Saudi Arabia. The second case involves a Florida man.
Given the large concentration of persons from the middle-east in south-eastern Michigan, it would not be surprising to see MERS appear here.