After last week’s election, the country faces uncertainty on many fronts. Obviously, health care will be a major focus of Congress and the new Administration, although the implications for people with Medicare and their families remain unclear.

You may have already seen news reports about how some members of Congress want to privatize Medicare and transform the Medicare program as we know it today. By no means is this new news, but the election results brought about renewed interest in these ideas.

The Medicare Rights Center will continue to work tirelessly to protect and strengthen Medicare, and we will keep you informed every step of the way.

At the Medicare Rights Center, we know that your healthcare needs don’t take a summer vacation, and neither do we. Over the summer, our national Consumer Helpline staff was hard at work answering thousands of questions for people with Medicare and their families. From Monday-Friday year-round, our dedicated staff and volunteers are available to assist with needs ranging from help with low-income benefit enrollments to submitting complex Medicare coverage appeals.

The Medicare Rights Center is proud to offer a limited-time screening of You See Me, a heartfelt documentary from filmmaker Linda Brown.

The film is available through Medicare Interactive, the Medicare Rights Center’s online resource, from July 13 to July 27.

Every day, older adults and people with disabilities call the Medicare Rights Center’s national Consumer Helpline because they desperately need help navigating Medicare to access the affordable health care they need.

Thanks to our generous donors, our highly trained helpline counselors stand ready to take their calls and provide immediate assistance to people with Medicare, their families and caregivers, and the professionals who assist them. Last year alone, Medicare Rights answered 17,000 of their questions. And the phones keep ringing!

The Medicare Rights Center is in its second year of providing a range of Medicare resources to the 54 State Health Insurance Assistance Programs (SHIPs) across the country.

Working with the Northeast Iowa Area Agency on Aging (NEI3A), which was awarded a grant from the Administration for Community Living (ACL) in 2014, Medicare Rights today offers Medicare training and certification to SHIP counselors through the National SHIP Technical Assistance Center (SHIP TA Center).

This month, the Health Care Payment Learning & Action Network formally acknowledged the Medicare Rights Center as a Committed Partner. Medicare Rights supports the goal of linking 50 percent of U.S. health care payments to quality and value through alternative payment models by 2018. Medicare Rights directly answers nearly 17,000 Medicare questions each year on its free, multilingual helpline, and as a Committed Partner Medicare Rights will provide counseling to ensure that its clients — beneficiaries, caregivers, and professionals — are educated about Medicare-related alternative payment models.