Editor, Times-Union: Much of the current debate between now and election day will involve important questions surrounding health insurance, health care and Medicare. Medicare beneficiaries will soon have many insurance companies that offer Medicare Advantage and Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage in pursuit of them to enroll in the company plans for 2013. A reminder to Medicare beneficiaries that they should carefully consider their votes and their personal choices for coverage is very much in order. The article by Jordan Fouts in the Friday Times-Union provided such a reminder. Unfortunately, the multitude of factual inaccuracies and tendentious opinions passed on as fact in this article render it useless as anything other than a reminder to go somewhere else and get some accurate information. Every Medicare beneficiary who can should take advantage of the wealth of information that is available at www.medicare.gov If you don’t have a computer or find the use of a computer challenging, please don’t be embarrassed to ask a family member or friend for help. Help is also available over the phone if you call 1-800-Medicare. You may have to wait on hold, so you may want to plan ahead and call at a time when you have time. Help is available locally if you call the Kosciusko Community Senior Center and ask if they will help you speak with a SHIIP (Senior Health Insurance Information Program) volunteer. As a side note, our county is in serious need of several people who would like to serve this community by taking the training and becoming a SHIIP volunteer. If you have a background in insurance, human resources or health care, please give special consideration to this as a community service opportunity and contact the Kosciusko Community Senior Center to be directed to the proper contacts. I can only hope that the good people at the Times-Union (many of whom I know and would vouch for) will take advantage of some of these same resources, get the facts about the different ways that Medicare beneficiaries have to choose from to receive their benefits, and print an article free of such factual inaccuracies. Until then, those of you with birds as pets have the best use for that particular portion of Friday’s paper. Michael Suhany, RHU REBC PMG Health Insurance Advisors Warsaw, via e-mail
