Check-up Time: Seniors are Saving
Money on their Medications
Over 100,000 seniors in central Ohio now have prescription drug coverage
COLUMBUS, OH - Congresswoman Deborah Pryce (R-Columbus) today submitted the following editorial:
Two and a half years ago, Congress delivered on a promise we made to the American people by passing sweeping Medicare reform, including a comprehensive Medicare prescription drug benefit to, for the first time, give America’s seniors access to affordable prescription drugs. As we have now passed the May 15th deadline, the evidence is in and we have much to celebrate: the Medicare prescription drug benefit is working, and seniors are saving money.
Over 90 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries now have drug coverage - that's 38 million seniors. As of mid-June in Ohio’s, nearly 1.6 million seniors have prescription drug coverage.
Prior to enactment of this measure, Medicare had changed little since its creation in the 1960s. The program brought a 20 th-century attitude to 21 st-century medicine, funding expensive operations but failing to fund prescription drugs. Medicare would pay for your operation to install a pacemaker after a heart attack, but it wouldn’t pay for the heart medicine that might have prevented the heart attack in the first place.
The Medicare prescription drug benefit changed all of this. Thanks to the reforms we passed in 2003, which took effect on January 1 of this year, millions of seniors are now receiving low-cost prescription drugs through the new Medicare prescription drug benefit. In the face of partisan attacks and attempts to scare seniors away from signing up, I was proud to have teamed up with local advocacy organizations to hold events in central Ohio to educate seniors about the new benefit. The results of those efforts can be seen in the record sign-up, which far surpassed enrollment goals. The average beneficiary expects to save $1,100 a year.
And there’s more good news. Competition is reducing the cost of the benefit both for seniors and for taxpayers. Premiums were originally expected to be $37 per month, but competition among the plans has reduced average premiums to just $24 per month. Low-income beneficiaries are receiving significant assistance, often paying little or no premium, co-pay or deductible. Estimated taxpayer costs of the plan from 2006 to 2015 have dropped by $180 billion. In fact, the cost of the program is expected to fall from an estimated $8 billion in 2006 alone.
The initial sign-up deadline ended on May 15, but our commitment to America's seniors hasn't stopped. The House Ways and Means Committee recently held a hearing to examine the benefit and the Medicare agency announced that seniors who qualify for the low-income benefit can continue to enroll past the deadline penalty-free. The Social Security Administration (SSA) has launched significant outreach efforts through targeted education and application events, in addition to direct mailings and follow-up phone calls, to likely low income-eligible individuals. The Medicare agency is coordinating closely with SSA and local organizations on personalized grassroots outreach.
The Medicare prescription drug benefit represents the most significant modernization to any public health program in our nation's history. Seniors signed up in droves and are saving a lot of money. The best part are the stories that I've heard from countless seniors and their families in my district who finally have the peace of mind that they can get the medicines they need to improve their quality of life. When millions of America's seniors go from having little or no access to prescription drug coverage to having the choice to select affordable coverage that best meets their needs, we all have much to celebrate.
