Friday, March 22, 2024

Going From Medicaid to Medicare

 If you are under 65 you only need to pass an income test to qualify for Medicaid. Once you turn 65 you need to pass an asset test to continue coverage under Medicaid. An asset test is the total money you have in bank accounts, stocks, bonds, CD's, and retirement accounts. Just before her 65th birthday, my partner received a denial letter for Medicaid. Then she received a letter asking for a list of her assets. Since she only has a checking account, she went to their office and gave them a copy of her last bank statement. Shortly after that she received an approval letter. Then a week later she received a denial letter, and a week after that, a pending approval letter saying they needed her asset information. It became clear to us that Health and Human Services was overwhelmed with medical assistance requests and letters were being automatically sent based on arbitrary deadlines. In total she received six letters alternating between approval and denial within 6 weeks.

She decided to call her assigned HHS case worker to try and get the status of her health insurance application. The case worker said that she never received her bank statement. She also said that my partner would need to spend down her assets to $3000 to qualify for Medicaid. I looked it up online and it said that after you turn 65 the income limit is $14,820 and the asset limit is $10,000. The $3000 asset limit is for long term care coverage. Prior to age 65, the income limit is $19,391 for an adult without children. So, with that, my partner has no health insurance and will need to apply for Medicare. It would have been nice if they had told her this was going to happen and listed her options. Instead, you have to figure it out on your own. Going down the Medicare rabbit hole also includes deciding when to apply for Social Security. 

We logged into the Social Security website, and it showed that her full retirement age is 66 and 10 months. If she applied for Social Security today at age 65, she would get $689 per month. At her full retirement age in two years, she would get $785. Her income history is sparce, but at least she had the 10 years of earnings needed to qualify. I'm a few years younger than her, so this is a preview to the decisions I will need to make. My estimated benefit at age 67 is $2699. It would be advantageous for me to delay Social Security for as long as possible. But having to wait another 5 1/2 years will be difficult. My taxable income for 2023 was only about $14,000 and my partner had zero income!

We also discovered that Medicare isn't free. It gets progressively more expensive depending on how many options you add. Medicare part A (Hospital Insurance) has no premium, but there is a $1632 deductible. Medicare part B (Medical Insurance) costs $174.70 per month with a one-time $240 deductible and a 20% co-pay after the deductible. Part C & D (Advantage and drug coverage) vary in cost depending on which company you select and which deductible and co-pay options you choose. They do have free Advantage plans, but the deductibles are so high that it isn't really an option. A plan with dental and vision and $3000 deductible costs about $80 per month. We are expecting to pay at least $260 in monthly premiums. This money would need to be deducted from her monthly Social Security payment. That doesn't leave much for living expenses or saving for future needs. 

Since she is divorced, she qualifies for ex-spousal benefits. But it would only be 50% of her ex-husband's full retirement benefit. Either her benefit amount or 50% of her ex-husband's benefit, whichever is greater. For example, if his benefit was $1700 per month, she would be able to get $850 instead of $785. If you are the divorced spouse of a worker who dies, you could get benefits the same as a surviving spouse, provided that your marriage lasted 10 years or more. Widows are due between 71 percent (at age 60) and 100 percent (at full retirement age) of what the husband was getting before he died. That goes both ways, if you made more money than your husband, then he might be due a widower’s benefit on your record if you die before he does. It's ironic to know that the Social Security office considers an ex-spouse to be worth more to you after they pass away.

Friday, February 09, 2024

Free Online Tax Filing Options (2024)

 For the 2023 tax filing season, the IRS has several free options for anyone who earned less than $79,000 (Adjusted Gross Income). My partner had no earned income in 2023, but they did receive a $260 refund from the State of Minnesota in 2023. It turns out that Minnesota missed the deadline for this to be considered a COVID relief payment. This means that everyone in MN who received the refund will have to claim it as income on their federal taxes. Unfortunately, Turbo Tax and H&R Block do not allow form 1099-MISC under their free version. They want you to upgrade to their paid version in order to complete your taxes. This is going cause a lot of their Minnesota customers to look for other tax filing options.

Typically, you are not required to file taxes if you are single and earned less than $13,825. But, in order to qualify for medical assistance, it is a good idea to file taxes even if you made less than the minimum. We had been using Turbo Tax for the last several years. But this year, Turbo Tax asked us to upgrade to their paid version after we tried to enter form 1099-MISC. I had heard that the IRS was offering free tax services, so I went to their website to see what was available. I found out that you can't file for free on the IRS website, but they have partnered with several companies that offer free tax services. On the IRS website there is a filter tool that quickly narrows your options. The tool returned 3 companies that met our criteria for filing federal and state taxes. The 3 companies were "Tax Slayer", "FreeTax USA", and "OLT (Online Taxes)".  These companies are located in Georgia, Utah, and Missouri. All seem fairly equally capable, but I found more positive reviews for Tax Slayer and FreeTax.

Because my tax situation is more complicated, I will most likely be using Turbo Tax again this year. I don't have any earned income, but Turbo Tax makes it easy to import all of my investment information. Last year Turbo Tax charged me $158 for using their Online Self-Employed product. It saved me some time, but I don't feel like it was worth it since my adjusted gross income was under the minimum. I didn't have to pay any state or federal taxes, but I didn't get a refund either. I shouldn't have to pay 1.5% of my gross income to file my taxes. Our family has a small trust which also complicates tax time. It costs $200 each year for tax services on the trust, that's in addition to the 1% annual service fee the bank charges. Beneficiaries have to wait until late February for the trust taxes to be completed before they can finish their taxes. Online tax service companies will definitely feel the impact of the IRS's free tax filing options. But not everyone can use a free tax service. In 2020 among 148 million individual tax returns filed, just 4.2 million were filed for free. An estimated 70% of taxpayers are eligible for IRS Free File, but only about 3% used it in 2022. Now that the word is out, the percentage using the free service will surely increase. I wouldn't invest in any of the paid tax service companies as they will likely see 50% of their business disappear in the next year. 

Friday, February 02, 2024

Whirlpool WRB322DMBM Review

This will hopefully be my last post on the topic of refrigerators. I was able to keep my old fridge running for the last month by placing a fan on the compressor. Even with that, it would still overheat every few days, which would require a 2 hour cool down period before it would start working again. I decided to replace my failing 21-year-old Amana ARB2517CLS with a Whirlpool WRB322DMBM. I found this model was readily available at BestBuy, Lowes, and Home Depot. The suggested retail price was $1999, but each store had it discounted by $500. I decided to go with Lowes because they have a store that is within 3 miles of my home. They also had an extra $100 discount on any appliance purchase over $1000. This knocked the price down to $1399, which was a good deal. With shipping, haul away, and tax, the total came to $1606. I will also get a $105 rebate from the local power company, bringing the cost down to $1501. Such a good discount makes me think that this model might be discontinued soon, as it was first available on the market back in 2014, ten years ago.

It took about two weeks for the fridge to show up at the local Lowes store. They called and said they could deliver it 3 days sooner than the estimated date. We scheduled the delivery for Thursday, February 1st. On the morning of the 1st, they called again to say they would be there in 20 minutes. A large freight truck pulled into the driveway and the fun began. I had removed all the shelves prior to their arrival. They (two Hispanic guys) had to remove the doors on the old fridge to get it out of the kitchen. On the new one, they only had to remove the handles. Once it was in the kitchen, I had them move the door hinge to the left. It looked like they had done this many times before. They plugged it in and slid it into place. Total time for the delivery was about one hour. I installed the shelving and lowered the front leveling pads so that the weight was off of the front wheels and gave it a wipe down with stainless steel cleaner on a microfiber cloth. 

The Whirlpool has about 2 cubic feet less storage and is about 2 inches narrower in width. The missing space is equivalent to taking out the chef's drawer that was in the Amana. The Amana had a spot for an ice maker to be installed, but the Whirlpool came with one already installed. I just need to run a water line to the new fridge and turn on the ice maker. I plan on adding an inline water filter when I do that because the fridge doesn't have one. The Whirlpool has LED lights and digital temperature controls. The Amana was rated at 535 kWh per year and the Whirlpool uses 584 kWh of electricity per year. This is most likely because the Whirlpool comes with an ice maker installed. The inside is nice and bright and without the ice maker running the Whirlpool is very quiet compared to the old fridge. The missing storage space should not be a problem because we also own a chest freezer and a beverage cooler. If it lasts for 20 years like the other one, it might be the last refrigerator that I need to buy.

Sunday, January 07, 2024

Refrigerator Compressor Repair Update

Update on the Amana Refrigerator post: I took a photo of the compressor and found that it has a Tecumseh compressor. This compressor has been known to have bearing issues. An Embraco compressor is supposed to be better than the Tecumseh. Despite having cleaned the coils under the fridge, the compressor was still overheating. It would run sometimes for several days, but eventually the compressor would fail to start. I tried placing a small fan near the front of the exhaust vent to help cool the compressor. This pushed cool air under the fridge. A compressor gets hot when the coils are dirty, the system is low on refrigerant, or the bearings are not lubricated. The coils have been cleaned, and when the compressor runs, it gets things cold, so something inside the compressor most likely is going bad. The compressor will restart after I unplug the fridge and wait for about an hour. 

I could install a fan that blows directly on the compressor. But that may only briefly extend the compressor's life. Before I bought a fan that could be mounted in the back plate, I needed to do a test by placing a fan at the back of the fridge and pointing it at the compressor. I found that this worked better than having the fan at the front exhaust vent. The fan I used had a high and a low speed. The low-speed setting was enough to prevent the compressor from tripping the thermal circuit. The fan needed to be a few inches from the compressor for best results. This proved that installing a fan in the back plate would work. 

I found a moisture resistant 92 x 92 x 38mm 12-volt variable speed fan on Amazon for $20. It came with a speed controller, so that it would be easy to adjust the air flow. Most of the newer refrigerators have cheap cardboard access panels, but the one on mine is made of steel. The fan came with nice long mounting screws and metal guard plates. The fan has dual ball bearings and is rated to last over 6 years. It seems like it was made for this application. As an extra step I also ordered some 25x25mm heat sinks with double sided thermal conductive tape. I had to put a slight bend on the heat sinks because the compressor is round. I was able to do that with a vice and a vice grip plyers. I attached 2 heat sinks on each side of the compressor.

This was a last resort type of modification. But the refrigerator has been running for a week without any compressor issues. The only problem is that the fan is louder than I would like. It needs to be set at 1/4 speed to get enough air flow. That's about 45 cfm, which should be around 29 dB. I used a phone app to get a dB reading and it shows 60 dB near the back. I made a noise suppressor out of packing foam and placed it around the fan, but that doesn't seem to help. They do make fans this size that are supposed to make less noise, that is an option. The fan solution is working for now and hopefully will extend the life of the fridge a bit longer.