Consumer Alert - Medicare Scam Artists
Medicare Recipients: Beware of Scam Artists Selling Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage

Medicare Recipients: Beware of Scam Artists Selling Medicare Prescription Drug Coverage

The federal government has started a new Medicare Prescription Drug coverage benefit for Medicare beneficiaries. Private insurance companies, whose plans have been approved by Medicare, are selling these new Medicare Prescription Drug Plans (also called PDPs). Enrollment for the program, which began on January 1st, is underway. Insurance agents are selling this product to Medicare beneficiaries. There are millions of people on Medicare eligible for the program and there is a lot of sales activity going on between now and May 15 (the end of the open enrollment period). We are concerned that scam artists will try to take advantage of the situation and try to steal your money.

Here are some tips to avoid becoming the victim of a scam artist:

Beware of door-to-door salesmen. Agents cannot solicit business at your home without an appointment. Don’t let them into your home.
Check with your state’s insurance department (available through http://www.naic.org/state_web_map.htm) to make sure the salesman is licensed as an agent.
Do not give out personal information, such as Social Security, bank account numbers or credit card numbers to anyone you have not verified is a licensed agent. People are not allowed to request such personal information in their marketing activities and cannot ask for payment over the internet.* They must send you a bill. Once you decide to purchase a plan and have verified that the agent is licensed, you may give the agent personal information to assist in enrollment and billing.
Verify that the plan is an approved Medicare plan. All of the approved plans are available at www.medicare.gov or you can call 1-800-MEDICARE.
If you suspect fraud, call the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services Inspector General at 1-800-HHS-TIPS.
Contact your local State Health Insurance Assistance Program (contact information available through http://www.medicare.gov/contacts/static/allStateContacts.asp) if you have any questions at all.
To avoid being a victim, verify before you buy.

Xinhua - English
Spanish academy to compile new historical dictionary

www.chinaview.cn 2006-01-05 09:32:26

MADRID, Jan. 4 (Xinhuanet) — The Spanish Royal Academy will begin later this month to work on a new historical dictionary that will rewrite meanings of more than 120,000 entries, the project’s director told reporters on Wednesday.

Jose Antonio Pascual, co-author with Joan Corominas of the famous Critical Dictionary of Castillian Spanish, said during the first days of January he would start picking 20 experts to help with the project.

The academy will work with language academies in a range of Spanish-speaking countries, said Pascual.

“This work is inconceivable without their help,” Pascual said. “It has to include the development of Spanish in the Americas.”

The new dictionary will have 12 volumes and will also be available on the Internet. The Spanish government will provide 1.4 million U.S. dollars each year for the project.

Pascual said it would help readers understand when certain words fall out of use while others come into being and also to understand how synonyms have evolved.

The project will make use of the academy’s database, especially the Corpus Diachronico del Espanol, a large database showing the evolution of the Spanish language. The writers will use around 50 million data elements to carry out their work. Enditem

Dictionaries add new words. (No dawgs allowed.)

Two readers speak up with requests for more online dictionaries that audibly pronounce words — following up on a reader question in the Dec. 22 Web Search.
Q I read the article in this morning’s Star Tribune about online dictionaries that pronounce the word. Are you aware of an online biographical dictionary that provides this service for the correct way to pronounce someone’s name — the names of popular authors such as Lisa Scottoline and Annie Proulx, for example? Now, the only way to know is to hear them interviewed on a talk show.
AL DOLLERSCHELL, ROCHESTER, MINN.
A Two of the sites I mentioned in that Web Search — the Free Dictionary (www.thefreedictionary.com), which uses American Heritage, and Merriam-Webster (www.m-w.com) — have many biographical entries for famous people. They include audio pronunciation for the surname. Just click on the speaker icon next to the name.
I used two conductors’ names as tests for accuracy: Leonard Bernstein (BERN-stine) and Leopold Stokowski (stuh-KOFF-skee). They had correct pronunciations for Stokowski. But while Merriam-Webster had Bernstein right, the Free Dictionary offered the common mispronunciation BERN-steen.
Unfortunately, both online dictionaries mainly have entries for historical figures, not bestselling authors or other current celebrities. I have been unable to find a comprehensive biographical dictionary online that contains your sample names and audio pronunciations. If any readers know of one, please send an e-mail.
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