For Seniors, Hidden Costs in a Senate Bill: kennyboy keeps working at walmart as greeter every weekend ?
By Milt Freudenheim
The Senate Finance Committee has quietly recommended that millions elderly Americans who buy Medigap plans be charged new co-pays for doctor’s visits starting in 2015.
Consumer advocates predict the changes, proposed in the committee’s 1,500-page health care bill, will meet stiff opposition from lobbyists for seniors as the final version of the legislation takes shape.
Traditional Medicare pays about 60 percent, on average, of enrollees’ medical bills. Millions of enrollees buy Medigap insurance plans that offer complete “first dollar” coverage on some of the most expensive features, picking up all of what the patient would otherwise have to pay out of pocket.
“Seniors really like ‘first dollar’ coverage,” said Jim Firman, president of the National Council on Aging, a consumer advocacy group. “They don’t want to deal with extra paperwork and arguments over bills.”
The new co-pays are intended to push elderly patients to think twice before consulting their doctors. Some studies have found that Medigap policyholders use at least 25 percent more health care services than the generally lower-income Medicare enrollees who do not have Medigap policies.
Joseph Newhouse, an economist at Harvard University, said there was no “real evidence” that people over 65 would pass up needed care if they faced co-pays.
“Most seniors don’t go to running to the doctor unless they have a reason or are sent there,” said Maria Freese, director of government relations at the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare, an advocacy group. “For lower income people, even a nominal co-pay does cause them to forgo benefits,” she said.
Mr. Firman favors alerting enrollees to the real costs of Medicare-covered treatments, but as for the co-pay proposal, he said, “I think the consumer backlash to co-pays will be significant. Everybody is worried about seniors anyway. My guess is that the juice isn’t worth the political squeeze.” |
