Area seniors denounce Medicare drug law. People at meeting say they’re feeling more betrayed and angrier as details come to light about complex measure.
MAKING A POINT: Dr. Brenda Ross, mayor pro tem of Laguna Woods and member of People for a National Health Program, addresses Thursday’s meeting of the Health Care Council of Orange County in Santa Ana, where the changes in Medicare were discussed.
MINDY SCHAUER, THE ORANGE COUNTY REGISTER
• Answering some Medicare questions
By MAYRAV SAAR and DENA BUNIS
The new Medicare prescription-drug bill has given Lenore Rufrano some sleepless nights.
The 76-year-old retired nurse from Mission Viejo has read every word she could get her hands on about the landmark legislation. And it looked like she was going to have to give up the medigap policy that she counts on to fill the gaps in Medicare’s coverage and help her pay for her seven prescriptions.
“For the first time in my life, I started to think about what is more important,” Rufrano said. Could she continue to give her three children and grandchildren the Christmas gifts that she always has? Would going out to lunch once a week become a luxury she couldn’t afford?
As more details about the complicated law come to light, Rufrano has learned that the private medigap policy, which costs her almost $7,000 a year, won’t be taken away from her.
Beginning in 2006 when the prescription-drug plan kicks in, new medigap policies won’t be able to contain drug coverage. But anyone who currently has a medigap policy that includes drugs and wants to keep it will be able to.
“I’m so relieved,” Rufrano said. But she is still miffed at AARP, formerly known as the American Association of Retired Persons, for promoting a bill that she believes will force too many seniors into the managed-care plans that she wants no part of.
“They didn’t ask me. They didn’t ask anyone I know,” Rufrano said of AARP’s decision to support the plan.
EXTRA COVERAGE ALSO AFFECTED
Nine out of 10 people on Medicare have some type of supplemental insurance to help pay what Medicare doesn’t cover. Some have retiree health plans. Some who have low incomes are eligible for Medicaid – Medi-Cal in California – and others buy medigap policies from private insurance companies.
These policies generally pick up costs like the hospital deductible, the deductible and some co-payments for office visits and some home-care expenses. And three of the 10 federally standardized medigap policies offer some prescription drug coverage.
The 10 medigap policies are designated by letters A through J. The A policies cost the least and offer the least coverage. J policies cost the most and have the highest level of benefits.
Here’s what will happen to medigap policies under the new law.
• Policies A through G, which don’t offer drug coverage, will remain the same.
• As of 2006, all new H, I and J policies will not include prescription drug coverage. Anyone who has one of those policies, however, will be able to keep it and the prescription drug coverage as long as they do not enroll in the new Medicare Part D prescription drug plan. Lawmakers wanted to avoid anyone having duplicate coverage.
• As of 2006, two new medigap policies will be added. Policies K and L will have high deductibles and will not cover the deductibles for doctor visits. They will be designed to cover catastrophic costs.
FOR MORE INFORMATION
www.kff.org – This Kaiser Family Foundation site includes a Medicare calculator. Beneficiaries can insert income, drug costs and other information and the computer will calculate the amount of the benefit under the plan.
www.aarp.org – This Web site of the giant seniors organization has information about the Medicare law and the organization’s reasons for its support of the changes.
www.medicare.gov – This is the official U.S. government’s site for Medicare. More information can also be obtained calling (800) 633-4227.
Rufrano has company. A roomful of angry seniors and health-care advocates gathered at a town-hall meeting in Santa Ana on Thursday to rail against the bill and pledge support for the lawmakers who opposed it.
They wereangry at AARP. Angry at the legislators who passed it. Seniors have started sifting through the 7-lb. Medicare bill, and they are growing angrier with each page they read.
“It’s such a travesty, and people won’t know that until they need health care,” said Sandra Hester, a member of the Health Care Council of Orange County, which sponsored the event.
The town-hall meeting drew more than 40 people, including representatives from the office of Rep. Loretta Sanchez, D-Santa Ana.
Sanchez is the only one of the six House members representing Orange County who voted against the Medicare bill. None of those members or their staffs showed up at the forum.
Lawmakers are on recess until late January, and several members are out of the country. Sanchez was in Israel. Staff members of other House members said either they never received the invitation or their schedules were full.
Also absent were representatives from AARP, which lost 15,000 members after it supported the bill. Ernie Powell, advocacy representative for the organization, said AARP recognizes flaws in the bill but supported it as a “first step” toward providing prescription drug entitlements.
“From 1965 until a week and a half ago, there was no prescription drug benefit. There is now a benefit that can be worked on to be made stronger and to be made more beneficial,” Powell said.
Powell said AARP plans to work with Congress to repeal certain aspects of the bill, such as the provision that seniors can no longer buy cheaper drugs from Canada and Mexico.
But many people at the forum said they still felt betrayed. Reading a full-page newspaper ad that AARP took out in support of the bill, Ted Rosenbaum said AARP’s contention that the bill protects traditional Medicare was “an outright lie.”
Rosenbaum drew applause when he urged other seniors in the audience to send complaint letters to the politicians and organizations who supported the bill and ended with a rallying cry indicative of how grave the group considered the new law:
“We shall overcome!” he said.
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