Dear Sun Spots: I am writing in response to your Dec. 29, 2007 column: “Insurance Companies Offer Hearing ‘Aid’.”

I work for the Maine Center on Deafness and, since your column was printed, our agency has received several calls from seniors asking for assistance with hearing aids. We appreciate your paper’s informing your readers about this recent legislation requiring that health insurance covers hearing aids, and appreciate your publicizing our work on that bill. However, it seems that there is some confusion about what the new law on hearing aids actually says.

I believe people are misinterpreting what was written on Dec. 29. The reader posted a question about the new hearing aid law, stating that, “The bill allows companies to limit coverage to $1,400 per hearing aid every 36 months for those older than 21, with unlimited coverage for those younger.” Sadly, this statement in the reader’s question is inaccurate, as your paper correctly noted in answering the question.

All of us at MCD truly wish that the statement was correct, but that just is not the case at this time. Unfortunately, the legislation passed applies only to children under the age of 18, and the coverage will be phased in over three years. The law went into effect Jan. 1, 2008. If you have a health insurance policy that is either issued or renewed after that date, your insurer must provide your children with a $1,400-per-year benefit, once every three years.

The timetable for the Legislation to be phased in is:

As of Jan. 1, 2008, children aged 0 to 5 became eligible.

As of Jan. 1, 2009, children aged 0 to 13 will be eligible.

As of Jan. 1, 2010, children aged 0 to 18 will be eligible.

The version of the bill passed can be read online at www.mainelegislature.org/legis/bills/billtexts/LD151404.asp.

We hope that the Maine Legislature will expand this health insurance coverage in coming years to adults, but it will be a fight to get such an insurance mandate passed. We could use your readers’ help!

We are now working with legislators and other interested parties here in Maine to get a law passed that would provide hearing aids to elderly low-income Mainers, folks like your readers’ parents, grandparents, neighbors and friends who may be isolated at home and unable to communicate. A bill: Legislative Document 1055 (“An Act to Establish the Hearing Assistance Program for Low-income Persons Who Are Elderly or Disabled”) was proposed last fall to create such a program, and the Legislature ordered a group to study this issue. We just finished studying the issue and will report back to the Legislature, any day, on our findings. Readers, please call, e-mail or write to your legislators in support of a program like that proposed in LD 1055! – Geoff Tibbals, Maine Center on Deafness, No Town.

Dear Sun Spots: I have a 22-year-old son that is a single dad and is living with me. He is about to move out with his son and is in need of furniture in good shape, He has nothing. If anyone can help, please call me at 212-2115. Thank you. – In Need of Furniture, No Town.

• Readers seeking illuminated house numbers should please note that while Solar Market, 25 Limerick Road, Arundel, ME 04046, 985-0088 was provided as a possible resource, they do not in fact carry this product. The company was featured in the Jan. 29 Sun Spots column.

Dear Sun Spots: In response to the January 28 column on mineral shows and clubs:

The information for the Oxford County Mineral & Gem Association, Inc. needs to be updated. The address is 12 Crystal Drive, Newry, ME 04261. Meetings are the first Friday of the month at 7 p.m., at the Oxford Hills High School, South Paris. Our president is Dennis Brown, 647-2154. The dates for the 2008 Mineral & Gem Festival will be Saturday, July 12, 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. and 13 from 10 a.m. to 4 p.m. at Telstar High School, Bethel. Adults and children over 12 years old are $2, children under 12 free. For more information contact show chairman, Hugh Chapman at [email protected] or call Dennis Brown. – No Name, No Town.



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