Etheridge Responds to Bush Administration Medicare Part D Enrollment Events

News Release
Congressman Bob Etheridge
North Carolina

April 10, 2006

Contact: Joanne Peters
Phone: (202) 225-4531

Etheridge Responds to Bush Administration Medicare Part D Enrollment Events

Congressman Calls for Extension of Enrollment Deadline

RALEIGH -- U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge (D-Lillington) today called for the Bush administration to extend the deadline for seniors to enroll in Medicare prescription medicine plans, as Veterans Affairs Secretary James Nicholson's visited North Carolina to promote the Administration's Medicare Part D prescription medicine plan.

"Medicare Part D leaves a huge gap in coverage and provides no guaranteed benefit. Five months after the enrollment period began our seniors still find the new plans complicated and confusing. In North Carolina there are 38 different plans available for seniors and people with disabilities," said Etheridge.

"I encourage the administration to extend the May 15th enrollment deadline until the end of the year. North Carolina seniors need more time to navigate this confusing system, and sending a cabinet secretary to our state for one day is not going to solve the problem."

Etheridge is cosponsoring the Medicare Informed Choice Act, which extends the enrollment deadline from May 15, 2006, to December 31, 2006, and allows seniors to change plans one time if they are unhappy with their choice. The bill also protects retirees from being dropped by their former employer's plan during the first year of the implementation of the plan.

Without these changes, beneficiaries will face a late-enrollment penalty if they enroll in a plan after May 15, 2006, could lose employer-provided retiree health benefits if they enroll in some Part D plans, and could be prohibited from switching plans until 2007.

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