AARP Announces Specific Goals for Health Reform

The nation’s broken health care system has finally reached the top of the domestic agenda, and lawmakers now plan to tackle the problem in earnest.

Affordable health care choices for all Americans must be the goal. Yet, this basic necessity is increasingly out of reach. The recession has made a serious problem worse as laid-off workers lose their health benefits.

In New Jersey more than 175 thousand residents ages 50 to 64 lack health insurance, mostly because they cannot afford it because of high premiums based on their age and medical history. Drug costs are soaring, and in the Garden State, 32 percent of those enrolled in the Part D drug benefit land in the infamous “doughnut hole,” potentially facing thousands of dollars in out-of-pocket costs.

Statistics alone, however, cannot convey the human toll suffered by those who cannot afford health care. At AARP, we hear their stories all the time. Cancer patients who cannot afford health insurance; people suffering from rheumatoid arthritis, diabetes and heart disease who cannot fill their costly prescriptions; workers who quit their jobs to care for ailing spouses because they cannot afford to pay for in-home care; and people who burn through their life savings, lose their homes and end up in bankruptcy because someone got sick.

More than 20% of older Americans suffer from five or more chronic conditions that account for 75% of total Medicare spending – mainly due to high rates of hospital admission and readmission. Half of those re-hospitalized within 30 days had not seen a doctor since their discharge. It is estimated that in 2004 alone, Medicare spent more than 17 billion on largely preventable rehospitalizations.

AARP is fighting to make America’s health care system work for everyone. We believe that Congress should take six steps to guarantee that all Americans have the choice of quality health care plans they can afford: 

•    Guarantee affordable coverage for Americans ages 50-64;

•    Close the Medicare Part D coverage gap or “doughnut hole”; 

•    Create access to generic versions of costly biologic drugs used to treat cancer and other serious illnesses;

•    Prevent costly hospital readmissions by creating a Medicare follow up care benefit to help people transition home after a hospital stay;

•    Increase federal funding and eligibility for home and community based services through Medicaid so older Americans can remain in their homes as they age and avoid more costly institutional care; and

•    Improve programs that help low income Americans in Medicare afford the health care and prescription drugs they need.

Our health care system costs too much, wastes too much, makes too many mistakes and gives us back too little value for our money. This sad diagnosis is shared by many on both sides of the political aisle.

With costs rising and coverage shrinking, the need for fair, bipartisan measures to repair the system has never been so urgent.

This is the message our lawmakers should be hearing.