Press Release
FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
Contact: Deane Beebe
Communications Director
212-204-6219
Medicare Rights CenterDecember 22, 2005
Statement on New Medicare Drug Benefit Enrollment Robert M. Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a national consumer service organization, made the following statement today regarding the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services’ announcement on the number of people with Medicare who have enrolled in the new Medicare drug benefit:
Less than five percent of people who could voluntarily choose a prescription drug plan have done so (see calculations below). People with Medicare are frustrated and bewildered about a program that is needlessly complex and unreliable. The reasons for these appalling enrollment numbers are self-evident.
President Bush and Congress refused to enact a Medicare drug plan. Instead, 43 million Americans have been offered a subsidized industry of profit-making insurance plans hawking incomprehensible benefit packages. Any honest appraisal of the drug program’s performance demands an immediate restructuring to enact a drug benefit that would offer nationwide, understandable and affordable drug coverage through Medicare.
The Bush Administration’s report on its performance is misleading. Nearly 20 million of the 21 million people with Medicare that the Administration announced today as having drug coverage already had drug coverage. Worse yet, the Administration’s drug program is making coverage less reliable and less affordable for millions of people who had existing coverage. The 6.2 million impoverished Americans losing their Medicaid drug coverage next week are among those at grave risk of catastrophic harm because they are being transitioned to this Medicare drug program.
The voluntary enrollment rate of 4.7 percent compares miserably with the 93 percent voluntary enrollment rate achieved in the 11-month period when Medicare was launched in 1966. President Johnson signed legislation establishing Medicare on July 30, 1965. Just 11 months later, when Medicare coverage began, nearly all eligible Americans had voluntarily signed up for the new health insurance program.
People with Medicare with Drug Coverage in 2005 (according to CMS)
11.1 retiree coverage
4.4 Medicare Advantage plan
6.2 coverage through Medicaid
21.7 million have drug coveragePeople Who Voluntarily Enrolled in a Drug Plan (according to CMS)
21.3 million are eligible to enroll
1 million or 4.7% of eligible people have enrolledExtra Help
7.2 million low-income people with Medicare are eligible (according to SSA)
661,000 have been approved (according to SSA 12/2/05) 9.2 of those eligible for extra help have been enrolled