With the frightening economic news we could all use some cheering up. It might surprise you to learn there really is some good news out there, and some of that good news is about the Medicare program.
In 2010, about 47 million Americans were enrolled in Medicare. This number probably includes the majority of people diagnosed with mesothelioma, since symptoms often don’t develop for decades after exposure to asbestos. If you don’t receive Medicare yourself, you very likely are close to someone who does.
So what is the good news? First, the average cost of Part D prescription drug premiums will be slightly lower in 2012. This is an average cost, mind you, which means that not every Part D plan will be lowering premiums. But seniors who shop around during the open enrollment period in the fall may find some bargain prices. This is a little ray of good news for taxpayers, also.
Here’s another cheerful thought for the taxpayers — a study published recently in the Journal of the American Medical Association found that the prescription drug program actually offsets costs in other parts of Medicare. In particular, hospital and nursing home costs are reduced because seniors stay healthier when they take the medications their doctors prescribe.
This week the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services announced good news about seniors who hit the infamous Part D “doughnut hole,” the benefits gap that that leaves some seniors paying all of their out-of-pocket prescription drug expenses. This year 900,000 Medicare beneficiaries who fell into the “hole” received a 50 percent discount on their medications. They saved a total of more than $461 million, HHS said.
HHS also announced that millions of American seniors have taken advantage of the new provision that lets them receive preventative services without a co-pay. These preventive services include annual flu shots, check-ups, and many kinds of cancer screenings. It is hoped that this benefit will save money by catching health problems earlier, when they are easier to treat.
The lesson we might learn from these news stories is that sometimes you have to spend money to save money. It’s less expensive to fix a small hole in your roof than a big hole in your roof. It’s less expensive to maintain a bridge than to build a new one. Often it’s less expensive to treat a disease when you catch it early than if you put off seeing a doctor.
The idea behind a lot of proposals to “save” Medicare is that seniors should be spending more of their own money on health care instead of less. This is supposed to make them “smarter” consumers. But in the real world, many people simply put off getting care, or they stop taking medicine they can’t afford, and the result is that more money comes out of the health care system, not less.
So, don’t let politicians take any of these benefits away from seniors because they’re “too expensive.”
This entry was posted on Friday, August 5th, 2011 at 2:47 pm and is filed under Uncategorized. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.
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