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AARP Endorses “Affordable Health Care for America Act”
“As members of the House gear up for this historic vote, they will hear from older Americans”
Hartford, CT—Today AARP announced its endorsement of the Affordable Health Care for America Act (H.R. 3962) and the accompanying Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act (H.R. 3961). The Association’s support follows nearly two years of work with lawmakers on both sides of the aisle to craft a health care reform plan that meets the needs of AARP’s nearly 40 million members and all older Americans. Among those needs are reforms that strictly curb insurance companies’ discrimination against older Americans and Medicare improvements that strengthen benefits while protecting the program for future generations.
“For more than two years, AARP has been involved in the debate over health reform with the twin goals of making coverage affordable to our younger members and protecting Medicare for seniors,” said AARP Connecticut Director Brenda Kelley. “We have thoroughly read the Affordable Health Care for America Act and can say with confidence that it meets those goals with improved benefits for people in Medicare and needed health insurance market reforms to help ensure every American can purchase affordable health coverage.”
Today’s endorsement marks the first time in this legislative battle that AARP has put its full weight behind a comprehensive health care reform package. In the coming days, AARP will be educating its members about the health care reform package through its publications, paid advertising and more than five million calls and e-mails to its grassroots activists.
“As members of the House gear up for this historic vote, they will hear from older Americans,” Kelley said. “Our members have told us loud and clear that they want common sense reforms that will protect Medicare for them and future generations, and ensure all Americans have access to affordable, quality health care choices.”
The Affordable Health Care for America Act and the Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act contain critical components AARP has been fighting for on behalf of its members and all older Americans to improve health care for them and their families. They include:
- Protecting and strengthening Medicare for today’s seniors and future generations of retirees;
- Ensuring seniors can see the doctor of their choice or find a doctor if they need one by improving Medicare’s payments to doctors;
- Lowering drug costs for seniors by closing the Medicare Part D “doughnut hole” and allowing the government to negotiate with drug makers for lower drug prices;
- Taking steps to reduce waste, fraud, abuse and inefficiency in the Medicare program;
- Requiring Medicare and insurance companies to provide for important preventive services like screenings for diabetes, cancer and osteoporosis free of charge;
- Preventing insurers from denying you affordable coverage because of your age;
- Preventing insurance companies from denying you coverage if you have a pre-existing condition or dropping your coverage if you get sick;
- Limiting how much your insurance company can make you pay out-of-pocket;
- Providing affordable health insurance options for those who don’t have insurance; and
- Providing benefits to help seniors and people with disabilities live in their own homes and communities by establishing the Community Living Assistance Services and Supports (CLASS) program.
The bill also includes important new provisions that greatly improve funding and access to current and new health care programs for citizens in Puerto Rico and the U.S. Territories, an issue that is of particular interest to Hispanic leaders and residents in Connecticut.
Kelley added: “We cannot continue to let insurers price older Americans out of the market, just as we cannot stand idle while millions of seniors are forced to choose between their groceries and their prescriptions. AARP is proud to endorse the Affordable Health Care for America Act and the Medicare Physician Payment Reform Act, and we urge members of the House to pass this critical package in the coming days to help fix our broken health care system.”
Barry Sussman: Getting Ready for Health Care Reform – a 100+% Part D Increase! Way to Go, AdvantraRx.
A certain person I know got a big packet, maybe 300 pages or more, from AdvantraRx, a Medicare Part D insurer, the other day.
Most of the news was on one page. It said the monthly fee was going up by 68.98 percent in 2010. It didn’t say it in so many words; we had to figure out the percentages on our own. But that was easy. The increase was from $24.50 a month to $41.40 a month.
The annual increase is even higher – it’s more than 100 percent. That’s because AdvantraRx added a $100 annual deductible to the policy, where there was no deductible in 2009. (The arithmetic: 2009 annually, $294. 2010 annually, $496.80 plus $100=$596.80, or an increase of 102.99 percent.)
Now I know there are people who would love to have a Part D bill that size. Many Americans need multiple, expensive medications and crash into doughnut hole expenses. Their health stories are a lot worse and their fees much steeper. From my perspective, this increase is an annoying bite but not much more.
But look at it from the insurers’ point of view: Is this a breakthrough achievement for AfvantraRx or what?! All or almost all the major firms must be raising rates a lot for 2010. They always raise rates and now they’ve got an extra incentive – positioning themselves to be ready for health care reform. But still, a 102.99 percent increase from one year to the next, that’s something special. AdvantraRx must be proud. They’re so gutsy, they won’t even slow down when everybody is looking at them.
There’s one more thing. Somewhere in the packet it states that Medicare has approved this rate increase.
Read more at the Nieman Watchdog Blog.
New Player Enters Health Care Reform Debate!
Do You Really Believe in Monsters?
Can We Afford a Private Health Plan Option?
Last week, Congressman Anthony Weiner (D. NY) asked TV commentator (and former Congressman) Joe Scarborough a series of questions about private insurance companies that form the lynchpin of our current health care system and around which health care reform may be based. Congressman Weiner asked: ”Why are we paying profits for insurance companies? Why are we paying overhead for insurance companies? Why are we paying for their TV commercials? What is their value? What are they bringing to the deal?”
Here’s what we know about the role private health insurance companies play in our health care system – and might well play in healthcare “reform”:
1. Private insurance companies decide which doctors we see. Most Americans are in network plans that require them to use the doctors who allowed into their network. Some plans allow members to go to non-network providers, but only if the individual pays more out-of-pocket. Private insurance supporters argue that people are always free to go to a doctor who isn’t in their insurance plan’s network, but if they do so they have to pay the full cost themselves, something most Americans cannot afford.
2. Private insurance plans decide who gets insurance. They reject people who use too much health care, rescind contracts from high health-care users, and deny health insurance and/or coverage to people with pre-existing conditions. Plans also charge higher premiums for people based on what they determine to be a pre-existing condition or based on the individual’s gender, making health insurance unaffordable for many people.
3. Private insurance companies decide what health care will be provided and paid for. They decide what services will be covered in the insurance package they offer. They establish drug formularies and prior approval requirements for drugs and procedures. They set the standards for the documentation and proof they require to determine whether a prescribed treatment is medically necessary, and each plan has its own requirements. Private insurance plans are not bound by what your doctor thinks is best for you, and they may override your doctor’s recommendation, and refuse coverage.
4. Private insurance companies increase the administrative work load for doctors’ offices. Staff must submit different health claim forms for different insurance companies and comply with each plan’s own formularies and requirements for submitting medical records to justify claims. They must spend hours on the phone with insurance companies to verify coverage, cost sharing, and formulary rules.
5. Private insurance companies encourage people to ration health care. By developing products with high deductibles and cost-sharing, private health insurance companies encourage enrollees to think twice about getting the care their doctors prescribe. Unfortunately, such decisions are often based on cost rather than on medical necessity and/or quality of care. Someone who delays needed care because of a high deductible or high cost-sharing amount may leave a condition untreated, and may end up requiring more costly health care in the future.
6. Private insurance companies are highly profitable industries, for their investors. According to insurance industry filings with the federal Securities and Exchange Commission, profits for the 10 largest publically traded health insurance companies rose 428% from 2000 to 2007, from $2.4 billion to $12.9 billion. During the same time period, the number of uninsured continued to rise, although the economic downturn enabled some individuals to get insurance through state Medicaid programs, many lost their health insurance due to lay-offs.
What do we get from private insurance companies? A system that decides who gets insurance and who does not; that comes between patients and their doctors – and that makes profits for investors. Is this the right direction for our country to take in “reforming” the health care system? Can we afford this? And who stands to gain?
The President on Health Care Reform: “It’s not about Me”
“This isn’t about me. I have great health insurance, and so does every Member of Congress. This debate is about the letters I read when I sit in the Oval Office every day, and the stories I hear at town hall meetings. This is about the woman in Colorado who paid $700 a month to her insurance company only to find out that they wouldn’t pay a dime for her cancer treatment ? who had to use up her retirement funds to save her own life. This is about the middle-class college graduate from Maryland whose health insurance expired when he changed jobs, and woke up from emergency surgery with $10,000 in debt. This is about every family, every business, and every taxpayer who continues to shoulder the burden of a problem that Washington has failed to solve for decades.”
- President Barack Obama, Press Conference, July 22, 2009
Health care reform is about the health of our country, both literally and figuratively. It’s about the health of the people, and it’s about fiscal health. It’s about providing for people, not the insurance or pharmaceutical industries. And it’s about care, not just insurance. People aren’t cars, which might possibly have an accident. People get sick. Period. Not “might” get sick. Will. People need real health care, not just an insurance plan. The President knows this. Most of Congress knows this. So why are some fighting so vehemently against the truth?
A Public Plan Will Work For You
Private insurers comprise a major for-profit industry. They serve their own interests and those of their stockholders before those of beneficiaries. First and foremost, insurers are in business to make a profit, not to take care of people. Their job is to calculate risks. Their goal is to maximize profits, which may conflict with providing health coverage. And they aren’t going to save the country money either, quite the contrary in fact. The cost of private Medicare has proven that.
Public coverage, on the other hand, saves taxpayers’ money. A recent study by the Commonwealth Fund, a non-partisan health policy research group, indicates that including a public health insurance option similar to Medicare in any proposed reform would save almost two TRILLION dollars more than any reform that does not include a public option.
We need real health care reform. With a public option and a standard set of benefits across all private and public plans, everyone will be better able to access coverage they can understand, at a price taxpayers can afford. It’s about our health and our quality of life. It’s about all of us.
From the Desk of Judith Stein
Health Care Reform: If It’s Good it Won’t Be Easy
I have represented Medicare beneficiaries throughout Connecticut and the country for over 30 years. While there are surely gaps in Medicare coverage, and recent privatization efforts have threatened Medicare’s stability, Medicare has provided basic health insurance coverage, peace of mind, and enhanced economic security to hundreds of millions of older and disabled people, and their families. Finally, as a result of Senator Dodd’s leadership and the Senate HELP Committee’s bill, there is hope that younger uninsured people and their families will be benefited as older and disabled people have been under Medicare. The Senate HELP Committee bill, like all legislation, is a compromise; it is not perfect, but it is well worth supporting. I do so enthusiastically from three vantage points:
- As an advocate for fair access to health care and Medicare, and something of a Medicare historian, I particularly praise the Senate bill’s inclusion of mandated core benefits and a public health insurance option. Medicare teaches that this is the only way to truly provide fair access to comprehensible, secure, affordable health insurance and care. Anyone who truly knows Medicare and who looks objectively at the value and costs of the traditional program versus the private Medicare plans knows this is true.
- As a cancer survivor, I applaud this bill as it will bring access to health insurance and coverage to many who now go without by finally prohibiting insurance discrimination based on pre-existing conditions.
- As a small business “owner” (founder and executive director of a non-profit organization with 30 employees), I am grateful for the relief that this bill promises to employers, like my organization, that provide employee health insurance coverage. The cost of our good, but not “Cadillac” coverage, is a terrible strain on our budget and limits our ability to hire.
Thanks to the President, Senator Dodd and those on the Senate HELP Committee for pushing forward to provide health care coverage, and with it, access to care. Please – keep it up. Bring your Senate Finance Committee and House colleagues along. This is not easy, but good things rarely are.
We need health care reform!
