You can register to receive an email every time there is a new post. In the “Follow Blog via Email” section and press “Follow”. On the next screen, enter your email address and press ENTER. Shortly, you will receive a confirmation email to your address from WordPress.com. You acknowledge the email and you are a registered reader.
After you compete this short registration process, you get a notification email every time there is a new posting. The email has a quick teaser of the posting, along with tags that indicate how the posting relates to special topics/areas.
Thanks to these Retiree News readers who registered to “Follow Blog via Email”: Solomon Aleka
Thanks for the following new registered readers whose email address did not include a recognizable name: Happy Hawaiian
Back when the future was bright, and every night was Family Night, it was the gleaming Technicolor finale of suburban suppers. No Fourth of July cookout was complete without a chartreuse Jell-O salad, popped from a Tupperware mold. Norman Rockwell did magazine ads for it. Oh, you can take your apple pie; nothing says “America” like Jell-O. Heck, they served it to immigrants at Ellis Island, by way of orientation!
BUT what, exactly, is inside Jell-O? Sugar and lots of…..
Being ready for a disaster is more than storing extra water and supplies. It is equally important for you and your family to be financially ready for disasters. April is Financial Literacy Month. Now is a good to time to ensure you have adequate insurance, a plan to pay bills, and an alternate way to access financial and personal records. Taking these preparedness steps will help with disaster recovery.
The Federal Emergency Management Agency (FEMA) and Operation HOPE created the Emergency Financial First Aid Kit (EFFAK). Use the EFFAK to identify important documents, medical records, and household contracts.
When completing the kit, you will be guided to include pictures or a video of your home and belongings, and to store them in a safe place. Storing critical documents is also one of the ten ways to participate in America’s PrepareAthon! so be sure to register your actions on the campaign website.
The 2014 EFFAK is available in English, Spanish, and reader enabled English versions that can be filled out online.
To learn more about the EFFAK and other tools you can use to prepare your finances, check out this blog post from Gwen Camp, Director of FEMA’s Individual and Community Preparedness Division and a public service announcement from FEMA Administrator Craig Fugate and Operation HOPE CEO and founder John Hope Bryant.
Airman is the online magazine of the United States Air Force. The Defense Media Activity produces the magazine for the Secretary of the Air Force Office of Public Affairs.
Read the latest postings at http://airman.dodlive.mil
View back issues http://airman.dodlive.mil/category/archive/
When a quick fast-food run is your only choice, reach for one of these options to escape the restaurant with your diet unscathed.
Just an FYI, Bishop Museum along with HECO will be hosting “HECO Grow Hawaiian Festival” on April 25, 2015, and admittance is free with local or military ID. See you there!
Link to website for more information
Numerous reports have been received from TRICARE beneficiaries regarding bogus “call center” representatives who are encouraging beneficiaries to provide personal identifying information and health information so that TRICARE can allegedly provide prescribed cream medications to the beneficiary.
Be wary of unsolicited attempts by any entity asking for personal or health information, either by phone or in person.
TRICARE beneficiaries receiving calls asking for personal information should immediately submit a fraud report to the pharmacy benefit contractor, ESI, via email to TRICAREfraudtip@express-scripts.com or call toll free 866-759-6139. ESI staff can also flag profiles and reject attempts to bill for these medications. People receiving unsolicited medication in the mail should refuse delivery.
For more on TRICARE, visit the Military.com TRICARE section
Tax Freedom Day® is the day when the nation as a whole has earned enough money to pay its total tax bill for the year. Tax Freedom Day® takes all federal, state, and local taxes and divides them by the nation’s income. In 2015, Americans will pay $3.28 trillion in federal taxes and $1.57 trillion in state and local taxes, for a total tax bill of $4.85 trillion, or 31 percent of national income. This year, Tax Freedom Day® falls on April 24, or 114 days into the year.
The Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs’ (DCCA) Office of the Securities Commissioner announces SmartCheck Scam Jam events on Oahu and Maui as part of Financial Literacy Month. The free educational events are in partnership with the U.S. Commodity Futures Trading Commission (CFTC), Department of the Attorney General Crime Prevention and Justice Assistance Division, AARP Hawaii and BBB Serving Hawaii.
“We are excited to partner with CFTC and other local agencies to educate Hawaii investors about financial fraud prevention,” said Securities Commissioner Ty Nohara. “The events are geared to provide insight for consumers to stay one step ahead of ever-changing marketplaces and scams.”
CFTC Consumer Outreach Officer Michael Herndon added, “Investors often overlook signs that an offer is potentially fraudulent, so it’s important for people to understand and improve their investing strategy. These educational events provide new tools and information to help protect investors from financial fraud.”
SmartCheck.gov provides easy access to free tools to check the background of financial professionals and stay informed on the latest fraud schemes – directly from those who regulate financial professionals.
CFTC SmartCheck is a campaign that connects investors to tools to check the registration, license, and disciplinary history of certain financial professionals. This collection of tools allows the responsible investor to check the credentials of financial professionals, uncover any past disciplinary history, and helps them stay ahead of scam artists with news and alerts. This campaign is central to the CFTC’s commitment to protecting investors through robust fraud prevention and investor education.
The SmartCheck Scam Jam exhibitors will provide free educational materials on investor and consumer protection, understanding credit, planning for retirement, taxes, identity theft and avoiding being a victim of financial fraud.
Schedule of Events:
Wednesday, April 29 (Oahu)
McKinley High School Cafeteria 5:30 – 7:30 p.m. No registration requiredThursday, April 30 (Maui)
Maui Beach Hotel, Elleair Ballroom Session 1: 1:30 – 3:30 p.m. Session 2: 4:30 – 7:00 p.m. Register online: http://aarp.cvent.com/scamjam4-30 Register (toll free) 1-877-926-8300Friday, May 1 (Oahu)
Ala Moana Hotel, Hibiscus Ballroom 1 10 a.m. to 12 noon Register online: http://aarp.cvent.com/scamjam5-1 Register (toll free) 1-877-926-8300 Kahala Mall, Courtyard Area 5:30 p.m. to 7:30 p.m. No registration requiredFor more information about SmartCheck Scam Jam events, call DCCA’s Investor Education Specialist Theresa Kong Kee at (808) 587-7400.
Lawmakers last week did what they have not been able to do for more than 17 years. They approved a plan to prevent a large cut in payments to doctors who treat Medicare and TRICARE patients. President Barack Obama signed the bill into law Thursday.
The law repairs a flaw in a formula enacted by Congress in 1997 to slow the growth of Medicare’s cost by limiting reimbursements to physicians. It also applied to TRICARE payments. But the formula shortchanged doctors and gave them incentive to stop seeing those patients. Each year, then, Congress has provided a one-year “doc fix,” as it became called.
NGAUS has pushed Congress for years to find a more permanent solution to give physicians and patients a sense of security.
“Congress has finally given this problem the attention it has deserved for years,” said retired Col. Pete Duffy, the NGAUS legislative director. “We are happy to see the bipartisan support for this fix on Capitol Hill. Our members who use TRICARE can rest easy now.”
Doctors faced a cut of 21 percent in reimbursements last week if the law had not been approved.
The new law repeals the old Medicare formula and replaces it with one that provides an increase of .5 percent on payments to doctors until 2019. It then pays on the basis of performance, either offering bonuses or penalties depending on the government scorecard.
The performance will be based on the quality of care, which the president mentioned when he signed the bill, saying, it “starts encouraging payments based on quality, not the number of tests that are provided or the number of procedures that are applied, but whether or not people actually start feeling better.”
Retirements
Reminder: the deadline for signing up for SGM Kathy Arizo’s Retirement Celebration is rapidly approaching. Check the flyer for more details http://wp.me/P3639O-2F6
Retiring later this month is Olivia “Oli” Yee of the Human Recourses Office (HRO). Oli will retire with over 34 years Federal service, 28 of them with the Human Recourses Office. Oli has served in several positions over the years in the HRO. She will be missed! Happy Retirement Oli
Oli requested she be allowed to leave without a retirement event. Stop by the HRO in the next few days to say your Aloha.
Sandy Hashimoto
announced that she will retire on July 31, 2015. Sandy has been the technician retirement expert in the Human Recourses Office for many years. She helped technicians with their retirement processing and even assisted individuals after their retirement.
A couple of news items pertaining to the Defense Finance and Accounting Service (DFAS). None of these are long enough to make a whole post, but they still warrant your attention and possible action.
Email Address Changing From time to time, DFAS sends out emails that contain important information pertaining to your pay account. These are called “SmartDocs” emails because of the email address used as the sender. The sending email address is changing on 16 May 2015. If you have spam controls set up on your mail, you should add the new address to your permitted list so that you don’t miss anything. The new sender email address is DFAS-SmartDocs@mail.mil. This address is only used to send out bulk emails, please do not send anything important to the address as you will not receive a response.
Internet Explorer Must Be Updated Effective 21 April 2015, myPay users who access their accounts through the Internet Explorer web browser must have Internet Explorer version 8 or higher in order to access their accounts. Earlier version do not have the necessarily security protocol and attempts to log on with earlier versions of Internet Explorer will be denied.
Not sure what version you’re running? Look in Internet Explorer’s Help or Settings menu and select the “About” link. In the same pop-up box that tells you what version you are using, there is a check box to keep your browser updated. Use this if you are using an outdated version.
Retiree Pay Verifications While military retirees have been able to access Retiree Account Statements for some time, they don’t always satisfy the needs of banks or other lenders when you’re applying for a mortgage or other large loan. Now, military retirees with a myPay account can get an official pay verification letter, on DFAS letterhead, to print as necessary.
Don’t have a myPay account? I encourage you to set one up. It provides access to all your pay and tax information without having to call or mail requests. You can also change beneficiaries, set up tax withholding, manage allotments, and more.
DFAS and the myPay system are awesome tools for keeping on top of your pay situation. Make sure you’ve got access so that you can do the things that you need to do.
The April 2015 edition of NATIONAL GUARD is available online
Features:
Into the Unknown No one is quite sure what Congress will do with the fiscal 2016 defense budget. By William Matthews
Still Solid The NGAUS legislative team has some new players very familiar with Capitol Hill and plenty of momentum from recent successes. By Rebecca Autrey
‘We have not done a good job in helping everybody understand the impact of sequestration on the National Guard’ A conversation with Rep. Mac Thornberry, the chairman of the House Armed Services Committee
New Post Among the first-termers in the 114th Congress is a pair of Army Guard officers. By Ron Jensen
At a Glance An almanac including important National Guard data by state, key congressional committees, state congressional information, NGAUS history and governance
The National Guard Association of the United States
One Massachusetts Avenue, NW | Washington, DC 20001 | www.ngaus.org
P: 202.789.0031 | F: 202.682.9358 | newsletter@ngaus.org
Retirement is a transition into a new stage of life. Retirees get the freedom to choose how to spend their time, but they also walk away from the comfort of a steady paycheck and need to make important financial decisions.
