The Commonwealth Fund released a report this week examining out-of-pocket expenses for people with Medicare. Fifty-six million people—17% of the U.S. population— rely on Medicare and receive many benefits from the program, yet, Original Medicare excludes coverage for dental, vision, hearing, and long-term services, and contains no ceiling on out-of-pocket costs for covered services. As a result, beneficiaries can be exposed to high costs.

Last week, the Commonwealth Fund released a study comparing the experiences of working-age adults with various insurance statuses over the course of a year. Specifically, the study compared those with Medicaid, those with private or employer-sponsored insurance, and those without insurance. With more than 70 million Americans covered by Medicaid, and an estimated 12 million gaining coverage under the Affordable Care Act’s Medicaid expansion, it is important to know how people’s experience of that coverage stacks up to private coverage and to being uninsured.

This week, Medicare Rights Center (Medicare Rights) responded to a request from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) on how to strengthen the Medicare Advantage (MA) and Part D prescription drug programs.

A new Kaiser Health Tracking Poll released this week shows that about two-thirds (64 percent) of the public say that it is a “good thing” that the American Health Care Act did not pass. More than half (52 percent) of the public said that they are “relieved” that the bill did not pass, reflecting concern about the impact that the American Health Care Act would have had on people’s access to quality health insurance. In the same vein, more people said the bill did not pass because it went “too far” in cutting benefits than said it failed because it did not go far enough.

This week, the President sent a more detailed supplement to his 2017 budget to Congressional appropriators that proposes dramatic cuts to the State Health Insurance Assistance Programs (SHIPs). SHIPs provide one-on-one in-person counseling to help people with Medicare understand their rights and navigate their coverage options. The President’s proposal would almost completely eliminate federal funding for this essential program.

Last week, the Center on Aging at the American Institute for Research (AIR) released a set of issue briefs detailing the complexities of enrolling in Medicare. One of the briefs, Medicare Complexity Taxes Counseling Resources Available to Beneficiaries, highlights Medicare choices and the personalized counseling available to beneficiaries and their families.

This week, the Medicare Rights Center signed onto a letter from the Leadership Council of Aging Organizations calling for a Congressional task force to improve Medicare and other health programs for residents of Puerto Rico. These suggested reforms would increase fairness and provide essential access to benefits. The suggestions include improving low income support programs, enhancing Medicaid funding, and providing for automatic enrollment for certain people eligible for Medicare as takes place for residents of the states.

The Affordable Care Act (ACA) requires Marketplace plans to keep people unless they ask to disenroll or stop paying their premiums under a consumer protection called “guaranteed renewability.” This means that people have a right to keep a plan that they are in and their plan cannot drop them because they become older or sicker.

In a recently proposed rule, the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) asks whether this protection conflicts with a longstanding Medicare law that prohibits a health plan from selling a policy to a person who already has Medicare. Medicare Rights responded that guaranteed renewability should be maintained, based on both the simple reading of the law and on fundamental fairness.

Last week, the Medicare Rights Center and partner organizations, including Justice in Aging, the Center for Medicare Advocacy, and the National Council on Aging, wrote to the Acting Administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), to urge the agency to revisit the policy that allows certain private insurance companies to automatically enroll certain people into Medicare Advantage plans.

The Medicare Rights Center (Medicare Rights) responded to a request for information (RFI) from the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services (CMS) asking about inappropriate steering practices encouraging people into coverage that is not right for them. CMS raises concerns about whether providers, plans, or others who stand to gain from an individual’s enrollment decisions may improperly influence people who may be eligible for Medicare or Medicaid to decline public health insurance and retain private market coverage or convince people to give up private market coverage in favor of Medicare or Medicaid.