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| A Good Way to Start the Week |
October 26, 2005 |
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Dear Friends,
The public meeting we set up for seniors to get advice and answers to their questions about the new prescription drug benefit in Medicare wasn`t supposed to start until 8am on Monday morning. But seniors were standing in line at the door to the Indian Pueblo Cultural Center at 7:30, waiting to come in.
I invited all the companies who are offering drug coverage to come, and many of them did.
The kind guys at the Pueblo Cultural Center got more chairs as the crowd grew larger and larger.
One man is a disabled vet, so he gets his medicine at the VA, but his wife wanted to look at her options.
A woman I talked to has to take an unusual drug. She found some companies had it on their formulary and others didn`t. She was there to check the facts and find the right plan for her.
Another man quietly told me what his income was and his savings. I sent him over to Eva Lujan at the Social Security table to sign up for the extra help for people who are low income. He probably will not have to pay any premiums or deductibles and only a small co-pay to get his prescriptions. But he has to sign up with Social Security.
Another woman told me that she is as healthy as a horse and wonders if she should not buy any coverage -- which she can do, because it is all voluntary -- or just get one of the lower cost plans to give her catastrophic coverage if she were to get really sick. There`s one plan that`s less than $11 a month that she was going to check out.
All seniors on Medicare should have gotten the Medicare and You booklet in the mail by now. And people can start signing up for the prescription drug coverage on November 15.
Over the next few months, we will be working with providers, federal agencies, churches, charities, and helpers to get seniors answers to their questions so that they can make a choice that works for them.
Of all the things I get to do in this job, the helping people part is the best. Sometimes people just need help figuring out what to do or where to go. They want to be reassured that the lady who says she is from Social Security really is from Social Security. They want to talk things through or share their worries before they make a decision.
I don`t know all the answers. But over the coming months, we`ll try to connect people with others who can get them the answers that they need. We helped a couple hundred people on Monday morning. That was a good way to start the week.
Wish you were here,
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