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Friday Alert
Friday, June 27, 2008(Alliance for Retired Americans)
Medicare Bill to Help Seniors Falls
One Vote Short in Senate
In the
Senate on Thursday night, supporters of H.R.
6331, the “Medicare Improvements for Patients
and Providers Act of 2008,” fell one vote short
of the 60 needed to close debate and bring the
measure up for a vote. On Tuesday, the
U.S. House had voted 355-59 in favor of the
bill, which would have helped more seniors
qualify for help paying Medicare premiums by
fixing the current personal assets test.
In addition, the bill would have stopped
scheduled payment cuts to doctors who treat
Medicare patients and improved Medicare’s
preventive benefits, by eliminating several
co-payments and bringing mental health parity
to Medicare benefits. The final vote was
58-40, with Senate Majority Leader
Harry Reid (NV) changing his
vote to “No” to preserve the right to bring up
the legislation again later. Senators
Mitch McConnell (KY),
Arlen Specter (PA) and
John Sununu (NH) were among
the 40 Senators whose vote would have made all
the difference in reaching cloture. The
complete results of the Senate vote are
available at http://www.senate.gov/legislative/LIS/roll_call_lists/roll_call_vote_cfm.cfm?congress=110&session=2&vote=00160
. Alliance members sent more than 3,400
letters to Congress urging passage of the
bill. “Once again, Alliance members came
through in the clutch,” said George J.
Kourpias, President of the
Alliance. “Our members were heard loud
and clear: ‘We will not settle for a compromise
that leaves seniors out. Senators who
voted wrong cannot say no one spoke up.”
Congress could take up the issue again after
the July 4 recess and pass legislation that
retroactively restores the physician fee
cut. However, such a move would disrupt
the payments to physicians. Complete results of
the House vote are available at http://clerk.house.gov/evs/2008/roll443.xml.
GAO Report on Medicare Advantage
Waste is Released
A Government
Accountability Office (GAO) report released
Wednesday by House Ways and Means Health
Subcommittee Chairman Pete
Stark (D-CA) found that the private
insurance companies administering these plans
have spent less than projected on
beneficiaries, while raking in an extra $1.4
billion on top of their $35 billion in
profits. The GAO examined plans
representing 78% of MA enrollees, and found the
programs only spent 85.7% of their total
revenue on medical expenses in 2005,
significantly below their projection of
90.2%. “Private plans in Medicare spend
even less on medical care than they report - to
the tune of over a billion dollars in one year
alone,” said Stark. “These funds go
directly into the pockets of big insurance
companies, not toward medical care for
beneficiaries.” Added Ruben
Burks, Secretary Treasurer of the
Alliance, “This report provides hard evidence
of what we have said all along – these plans
cost more to deliver less than traditional
Medicare.”
Settlement Shortens Wait Times for
Low-Income Medicare
Beneficiaries
Medicare officials
promised to expedite prescription drug
assistance for low-income beneficiaries, as
part of a proposed settlement filed last week
with the U.S. District Court in San
Francisco. The agreement resulted from a
class-action lawsuit filed on behalf of
hundreds of thousands of beneficiaries across
the country who have had trouble obtaining
medication under the 2003 Medicare law that
provided additional financial help for more
than six million people eligible for both
Medicaid and Medicare. While maximum
co-payments for most seniors with income below
$10,400 per year should be $1.05 for preferred
name-brand or generic drugs and $3.10 for other
prescriptions, beneficiaries have frequently
been charged $30 to $75 and more, because
low-income status was not properly shared among
state and federal agencies, insurance companies
and pharmacies. Many patients were denied
their prescriptions by pharmacies, causing
numerous states to declare public health
emergencies and cover medications for which
Medicare should have paid. Under the
settlement, if a beneficiary’s low-income
status is questioned, federal officials must
immediately contact state agencies to see
whether the person had been enrolled in
Medicaid.
Rhode Island Alliance HealthLink
Wellness Health Fair Helps
Hundreds
On Monday, the Rhode
Island Alliance for Retired Americans, led by
John Pernorio, hosted its
HealthLink Wellness Health Fair in West
Warwick, Rhode Island. Doctors saw more
than 265 visitors, who were screened for high
blood pressure, high cholesterol, diabetes,
oral cancer, prostate cancer, and other health
issues. Rep. Patrick
Kennedy (D-RI) and Alliance Executive
Director Edward Coyle
attended. “Prevention and early detection
keeps patients healthy and out of hospitals,”
said Coyle. “This wellness program
provided a great public health service.”
Nevada Protests Sen. McCain,
Welcomes President Kourpias
When
Sen. John McCain arrived at
the University of Nevada Las Vegas for a speech
on Wednesday, Nevada Alliance Vice President
Len Vizzaccero and members of
the Nevada Alliance were on hand, along with
65-70 other protesters, to greet him.
They protested Sen. McCain’s proposal for
Social Security privatization - the same
George W. Bush privatization
plan rejected by the American people in
2005. The next day, also in Las Vegas,
Alliance President Kourpias addressed the
Steelworkers Organization of Active Retirees
(SOAR).
The Alliance’s Seidman Prize
Awarded to National Labor College
Student
The Alliance for Retired
Americans Educational Fund announced that
Pamela Fero, a National Labor
College (NLC) student and National Air Traffic
Controllers Association member from Lauderhill,
Florida has received this year’s
Bert and Annabel
Seidman Prize for Advancing Social
Policy. Fero won for her research paper,
Winning The Game: What Unions Can Do To
Help Women Plan For Retirement. The
prize, awarded to an NLC student who displays
great interest in the aging field and in social
justice, gives the recipient $3,000 to help
further his or her work in those areas.
“Bert and Annabel Seidman were deeply committed
to helping workers and retirees with the
important issues affecting their lives,” said
George Kourpias, Alliance Educational Fund
president. “In her essay Pamela Fero
shows the same commitment to serving the
retired community.”
Editor’s note: Due to the Fourth of July holiday, the next Friday Alert will be published on July 3.