Month: February 2014

All About Camps & Retreats

This winter may be dragging on and on for many of us, but summer is just around the corner! A fun past-time for many children and young adults is summer camp – a few weeks away from home, cooking over a camp-fire, s’mores and sing-a-longs. Many children with specific diagnoses, however, are unable to go to camp with their peers; their condition keeps them from going to summer camp. This can be very upsetting, telling a child they cannot participate along with their peers due to a medical condition. Luckily, however, there are now many camps and retreats specifically designed […]

Introducing the New NeedyMeds Website Layout

By now, many of loyal users have probably noticed that we came out with a new website layout in January. We did not change the content of the website, but have updated the layout, navigation, resource names and descriptions. Above all, we did this to make it easier for you to find help you are looking for. Read on to learn about how we refreshed our look and how to find the same resources you’ve come to depend on in the past seventeen years.   How Did We Improve the Website? General Improvements: — • Made it more intuitive for new […]

All About Medicare Savings Programs

In 1965 President Johnson and the United States Congress created Medicare as part of the Social Security Act. A national program, Medicare is a health insurance program for people 65 years of age or older along with some people under age 65 with disabilities or end stage renal disease. It is broken down into four different parts. • Part A is hospital insurance – covering expenses for hospital care, nursing facility care, and home health services. • Part B is medical insurance for outpatient hospital care and doctor’s services. Unlike Part A, Medicare Part B is optional. • Part C, […]

Checking in on the ACA

It’s February 5, 2014, and the Affordable Care Act is still here. There have been lots of changes over the last few weeks, in a few different areas: Marketplaces pushed back the deadline to enroll in a Marketplace plan for coverage to December 23, in order for coverage to begin on January 1.  And some states went even further! Marketplaces have pushed back payment deadlines (allowing people more time to pay their January premiums).  For example, California’s Marketplace pushed back the payment deadline to January 15.  Some health plans are also deciding on their own to give people more time […]

About Us

Welcome to the NeedyMeds Voice! We look forward to presenting you with timely, provocative pieces on healthcare reform, patient advocacy, medication and healthcare access, and other health-related news. Our goals are to educate, enlighten, and elucidate; together, we will try to make sense of the myriad and ongoing healthcare-related changes in the U.S. today.