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Show Your Socidl Z: Security " j Medicare not :g tied to SSI Copley News Service I 0 i have been receiving L payments for about a fTflSve Medicare coverage u. UVj 0tkeryear?-S.P. A. No. SSI payment regardless I of bow long you receive rflfir them will not qualify you. i-il for Medicare. v Those persons who are receiving Social Security Q disability payments be- Mme eligible for Medicare beginning with the 25th month of entitlement to 'an benefits. . SSI recipients are cov- ered by Medicaid (Medi-BAG?! (Medi-BAG?! Cal in California). Q. I am 69 years old and rn tat married to the same - Ai did for 46 years. Now I 882 m ,livorcd and wU1 " m, maiaiingle. 003 Be is 74. If he should re-marry re-marry will I or his new wife get his Social Securi- C tj? - Anonymous ., . A. Since your former tlfUl tusband is over age 72 you Boa should be receiving bene-I bene-I fits now (providing you are I not entitled to a higher """""V benefit based on your own work or you are not working work-ing and earning more than the allowable amount). Q. I recently had a bad fall and injured my back. Will Medicare pay for the tervkes of a chiropractor? -F. A. Medicare medical insurance in-surance (Part B) helps pay for only one kind of treatment treat-ment furnished by a licensed li-censed and Medicare-certified chiropractor. The only treatment that can be covered cov-ered is manual manipulation manipula-tion of the spine to correct a partial or complete dislocation dislo-cation that can be demonstrated demon-strated by X-Ray. Medicare does not pay for any other diagnostic or therapeutic services furnished fur-nished by a chiropractor. Q. No wonder Social Security Se-curity is in trouble. I read recently that over 50 percent per-cent of Social Security taxes are used to administer adminis-ter the program. SI. A. A public opinion poll conducted last year suggested sug-gested that a majority of people believe it takes over half of each tax dollar to run the Social Security program. pro-gram. Actually, the Social Security Se-curity Administration's total administrative costs were only 1.3 percent of benefit payments. For every dollar paid in Social Security taxes, 98.7 cents goes toward paying bene-' fits to those who are now eligible. In past years administrative adminis-trative costs have been as high as 2 percent but the ratio of costs to benefits has steadily decreased. |