AARP Announces Specific Goals for Health Reform

Source: AARP.org

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As leaders begin hashing out plans to reform America’s ailing health system, AARP is stressing six specific elements that must be part of health reform, including closing the Medicare Part D coverage gap and ensuring 50- to 64-year-olds have access to affordable health care choices. 

“Health reform could not be more urgent. We simply cannot fix our broken economy without fixing our broken health system,” said Pat Gross, State President of AARP South Dakota.  “AARP believes health reform must make affordable coverage choices available to all South Dakotans, and all Americans.”
 
 AARP’s health reform campaign will focus on six critical priorities:

1) Guaranteeing access to affordable coverage for Americans age 50-64;

2) Closing the Medicare Part D coverage gap or “doughnut hole”;

3) Creating a Medicare transition benefit to help people safely return to their homes after a hospital stay and prevent costly hospital readmissions;

4) Increasing federal funding and eligibility for home and community based services through Medicaid so older Americans can remain in their homes and avoid more costly institutions as they age;

5) Creating a pathway for the approval of generic versions of biologic drugs to reduce the price of these costly treatments; and 

6) Improving the Medicare Savings Programs and the Part D Low Income Subsidy (LIS) so more Americans can afford the health care and prescription drugs they need.

“Ensuring every American, regardless of age, has access to affordable health care choices is paramount to AARP,” said Gross. 

“Guaranteeing access to affordable health coverage for people aged 50-64 is an essential element of reform.  Nearly 12,000 of  uninsured South Dakotans fall in to this age group.”

This age group is squeezed particularly hard by the current recession.  After a job loss, older workers remain unemployed more than 20 percent longer than younger workers.  Americans ages 50 to 64 are more likely to have a pre-existing condition, and are then routinely denied individual insurance in the private market—those that can get coverage pay three times more in premiums and twice as much in out-of-pocket costs than a person with job-based coverage.

Without options for affordable health coverage, 50- to 64-year-olds are more likely to forgo necessary medical care, keeping them out of work and increasing their health care costs when they reach Medicare eligibility.  As baby boomers age, the problem will become more serious --nearly one of every five Americans will be 50-64 by 2015. 

AARP is pressing Congress to find a common-sense solution to the coverage gap for 50-64-year-olds.   For information on AARP’s efforts to help people in this age group – and on ways you can help – please check out our new web page for health reform – www.healthactionnow.org.