The town hall meeting took place at the Cedartown Senior Center and was attended by a crowd of senior citizens and concerned community members.
Starting off the discussion of the Medicare program, Gin-grey let those that had gathered know that he agreed with the popular opinion.
“I’ll be the first one to admit to you, it is confusing,” he said as agreements spread through the audience.
He confided that the new bill passed by Congress will modernize the Medicare program and make it on par with non-senior health plans offered now.
“We probably came up with a good balance on this bill,” he continued. “One that makes sense.”
Although the new Medicare plan will not be available until 2006, and then phased in over the following five or six years, all beneficiaries will receive a prescription drug card in the meantime with a $600 credit added to their account in 2004 and 2005.
“It’s like being a member of Sam’s Club on steroids,” Gingrey explained.
He said that due to the 40 million Americans on Medicare using these cards, it is estimated that the average price of prescriptions will drop 15 to 20 percent.
Gingrey said that one of the objectives of this new Medicare system is to take care of the neediest of seniors.
When the prescription drug benefit plan does go into effect, prescription cards will be an estimated $30 a year. But the fee will probably be waived for those living with an income of less than $13,000 for individuals and $16,000 for couples.
It is the senior citizens who fit into this demographic, Gingrey says, who benefit the most from the reformed program rather than the “average senior.”
The “tremendous benefits”, according to Gingrey, include no premiums, generic prescriptions for $1 and brand name prescriptions for $3.
A big part of the passing of the bill through the Capitol, according to Gingrey, was the support of the AARP.
Their support, however, was given only if Congress could assure them that employers would not drop retirees’ insur-ance plans if the bill were put in place.
So, in turn, it was written in that the federal government would reimburse employers 28 cents for every dollar they spend on retired people’s insurance plans, tax-free.
The stipulation will take up $80 billion of the new bill’s $400 billion cost.
“I don’t believe this bill would have passed if that wasn’t in there,” Gingrey said.
According to Gingrey, a major reason for revising Medicare concerned the future of the program.
“If we don’t change it and modernize it, as this bill does, there will be no Medicare,” he said, predicting that the serv-ice would go bankrupt within 30 years if the current plan went untouched.
However, Gingrey did state that the new plan was not for everybody and, if a person wanted to, they would still be able to keep their plan the same as it has been.
The new bill also includes a 1.5 percent yearly increase in reimbursements to rural hospitals for the next two or three years, fighting the annual 4.5 percent drop in payment to these operations that, according to Gingrey, claim 90 percent of their patients through Medicare.
Another change is a means test for the program, which de-termines a beneficiary’s premium based on their total income.
Post a Comment