Health Under Medicare

Asclepios
Your Weekly Medicare Consumer Advocacy Update
An End to the Wait
May 21, 2009 • Volume 9, Issue 20

The Senate Finance Committee, which is writing legislation designed to extend affordable health care coverage to all Americans, has put forward four options to deal with the two-year delay in Medicare coverage for people with disabilities.

Option One shortens the waiting period to 12 months.

Option Two phases out the waiting period in six-month increments, with total elimination by April 2011.

Option Three has a slower phase-out, ending the waiting period in July 2015.

Option Four maintains the waiting period for people with access to private insurance (not including COBRA coverage from a former employer) and phases it out for everyone else.

The Medicare Rights Center believes that the sooner we completely end the waiting period for all people with disabilities, the better. Option Two achieves that goal.

New research shows that over 20 percent of people in the first year of the waiting period delay care because of the cost, twice the rate for adults who are too young for Medicare. Lack of insurance is the primary, but not the only, reason for forgoing care. Many have insurance that is inadequate to meet their health care needs, which spike around the time they become eligible for SSDI. Some 13 percent never make it through the waiting period, never accessing the Medicare benefit their taxes funded during their working years.

The statistics match the accounts of people who struggle to survive the waiting period. They put off care until Medicare coverage begins; they go into debt to pay for treatment; they file for bankruptcy because of medical bills. Once Medicare coverage begins, the picture changes. Health care becomes accessible and the future brightens for many people with disabilities.

Medicare has provided health security to generations of older adults and people with disabilities. As Congress tackles health reform, it must build on that success, ending the unjustifiable delay in coverage for people with disabilities, improving access to care for low-income people with Medicare and fixing the Part D drug benefit. Please write your representative and senators and remind them to “Remember Medicare” as they work on reforming our health care system.

This entry was posted on Thursday, May 21st, 2009 at 9:06 pm and is filed under Health Plans, Health news. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.