Perspective               

Medicare Launches New Education Campaign

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) is spending $25 million to advertise Medicare's hotline (1-800-MEDICARE), while spending only $17 million on all 53 State Health Insurance Assistance Programs (SHIPs) around the country. Consumer advocates are concerned because 1-800-MEDICARE refers thousands of callers with complex problems to hotlines that the SHIPs run.

People are usually referred to SHIPs if they who need help getting critical care from their Medicare HMOs, accessing home health care services, affording prescription drugs, or finding an insurance company that will sell them a Medicare supplemental policy. The $17 million HHS currently pays the SHIPs does not begin to cover the costs of helping all callers. The New York SHIP hotline, for example, only has enough resources to answer about one out of every six calls.

HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson recently announced the new national educational campaign, including a new commercial already airing on network television. The advertising highlights changes to Medicare's online health plan finder and hotline, which is open 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The ad campaign will overlap with the annual Medicare health plan election period that recently changed to November 15 through December 31. For more information on choosing a Medicare health plan, click here.

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