This Check Really is in the Mail
Over eight million seniors each year are trapped in the Part D donut hole –a cruel coverage gap where they pay premiums but get no drug coverage. It?s a provision only insurers could love and was included in the legislation which created Part D. Closing that donut hole has been on of our top legislative priorities and one of the most beneficial improvements included in healthcare reform legislation.In just days, the first step in the gradual phase out to close that gap begins. 80,000 seniors who?ve already fallen into the donut hole this year will begin receiving the first rebate checksnext week to help close their coverage gap. The $250 checks will continue to go to beneficiaries as more fall into the donut hole throughout 2010. Donut hole checks will generally be sent out every quarter. Although it is always possible for checks to be delayed, below is the planned schedule for distributing payments:
| If you fall into the “donut hole” by: | Your check will likely be sent by : |
| March 30, 2010 | June 10, 2010 |
| June 30, 2010 | September 15, 2010 |
| September 30, 2010 | December 15, 2010 |
| December 30, 2010 | March 15, 2011 |
We?ve provided more details about the new rebate in a fact sheet on our NCPSSM website.Starting in 2011, people who reach the doughnut hole will receive a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs. That means the typical senior will save $700 next year thanks to health reform legislation. By 2020, the doughnut hole will be eliminated.What this reform will ultimately do is put real health care dollars back into the pockets of seniors who need them and not to the insurers who?ve profited for years from this flawed provision. Check out the CMS brochure for beneficiaries here.
Still Confused about Health Reform?
Many Medicare beneficiaries are and it’s no wonder given all the misinformation swirling aroundhealth reform legislation.Today Congressional leadership and the administration have teamed up to help seniors understand how health reform will impact Medicare.
?Older Americans are dependent on Medicare for their health coverage. So seniors are especially susceptible to misinformation that Medicare is threatened by reforms. They are anxious and looking for information and they absolutely need a reliable place where they can get their questions answered accurately. It?s critical that seniors get the facts about provisions that will benefit them as soon as next month.? Barbara B. Kennelly, President/CEO
For 84-year-old Ben Williamowsky, the health care reform debate was often confusing and frustrating. As a retired dentist, he understands our current health system well, yet was discouraged by the amount of misinformation being targeted to seniors, during the debate and even now. Williamowsky described his frustration at a Capitol Hill news conference hosted by House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi today:
?I?m old enough that I remember what it was like in the early days after Medicare was created ? when similar scare tactics were used ? threatening seniors with all sorts of bad things if Medicare was enacted. None of them happened. Doctors didn?t go out of business or stop seeing seniors. In fact, life was much better for millions of seniors who desperately needed health coverage and today Medicare is a tremendous success story. But not everyone remembers history the way I do. That?s why we absolutely need someplace we can trust to answer our questions and dispel the false rumors about this new law. ? Dr. Ben Williamowsky, Medicare Recipient
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius described a new brochure being mailed to Medicare beneficiaries to help them sort fact from fiction, avoid scammers who want to profit from seniors? confusion and give beneficiaries the information they need to take advantage of historic reforms in the donut hole, preventative services and more.The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare is committed to providing America?s seniors with updated and detailed analyses of how healthcare reform legislation will affect their medical coverage in Medicare. In our newly released web video, ?Health Reform and Seniors?, we describe many of the provisions in health reform which will touch the lives of seniors, some as soon as next year. The video is available on the National Committee?s YouTube Channeland will also be made available to seniors groups, town hall meetings, and grassroots events.This video supplements the National Committee?s popular newsletter, Secure Retirement, which provides detailed coverage of health care reform in its spring issue. In fact, we?ve run a second printing of this publication due to very high demand from seniors nationwide.
America’s Budget Matters (So Does Yours)
When Older Americans Monthwas established in 1963, only 17 million Americans had reached their 65th birthdays. About a third of older Americans lived in poverty and there were few programs to meet their needs. Today, our senior population has more than doubled and thanks to the passage of Medicare and the Older Americans Act, our nation is much better prepared to help ensure older Americans age strong and live long. But did you know that according to the National Academy of Sciences almost 19% of seniors still live in poverty? That?s nearly 7 million seniors.This recession has hit America?s retirees especially hard as they?ve seen their savings decimated, home values plummet, healthcare costs skyrocket and face potentially two years with no cost of living increase.However, the fiscal hawks in Washington who hope to use seniors? programs (especially Social Security) to balance the federal books, seldom mention these fiscal facts. Today in celebration of Older Americans month, we?re joining other senior issues bloggers led by Wider Opportunities for Womenfor a day of blogging on the fiscalrealities facing America?s seniors. It?s vital that we understand more about our nation?s fiscal picture than what we?re being told by those leading a billion dollar crusade to cut Social Security.The American people have been bombarded with a steady stream of pronouncements that Social Security is bankrupt, broken, or just too generous.In truth, what these folks really mean is that they don?t Washington to honor its obligations to the Social Security trust fund. America?s seniors want fiscal sanity to return to Washington but there?s nothing sane about cutting programs, which touch the lives of virtually every American family, while ignoring the true causes of our current fiscal failures.Today, the President?s Fiscal Commission holds its second public meeting following a month?s worth of closed-door meetings. We?ve written extensively about this commission, it?s mission, and member makeupbefore. Our President/CEO, Barbara Kennelly, also continues to remindeveryone thatSocial Security isn?t the trouble and it shouldn?t be the target:
?If this commission?s goal is to get our nation?s fiscal house in order then its attention should be on programs which contribute to our debt and the revenue reforms necessary to improve the federal balance sheet. Unfortunately, too much attention thus far has been focused on using Social Security as the piggy bank for fiscal reform. Let?s be clear about this, Social Security has not contributed one dime to our current fiscal woes because that money was contributed by America?s workers over decades. Cutting benefits under the guise of ?fiscal responsibility? is anything but responsible during a time when retirees and near retirees are still suffering the effects of this recession?…Barbara B. Kennelly, President/CEO
We posted the first in a series of web videos on our YouTube channel addressing Social Security and the role it does (and in this case doesn?t ) play in our ongoing fiscal debate. ?Social Security ? Yours, Mine & Ours? reminds us all who really funds Social Security–the generations of American workers who?ve contributed $2.6 trillion dollars and counting to the Social Security trust fund. Dollars which have been promised to America?s retirees not Washington or Wall Street.Which brings us back to today?s blogging theme… America?s Budget Matters and So Does Yours. It’s vital that citizens, of all ages, take the time to educated themselves about the true causes of our current deficits and the what proposals currently being considered in Washington will mean to their day-to-day lives.
A Social Security Must-Read
Our friends, Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson, have written a wonderfully clear description of the presidential Fiscal Commission, its goals and make-up.
President Obama and the leadership in Congress have delegated enormous, unaccountable authority to 18 unrepresentative, inordinately wealthy individuals. The 18 individuals are meeting regularly, in secret, behind closed doors, until safely beyond this year?s mid-term election. If they reach agreement, their proposal will be voted on in December by a lame duck Congress, without the benefit of open hearings and deliberations in the pertinent committees and without the opportunity for open debate and amendment on the floors of the House and Senate. Despite the speed and lack of accountability, the legislation will affect, in substantial ways, every man, woman, and child in this nation.
Their piece in Nieman Watchdog is geared toward the press to encourage some serious question-asking that — so far–isnot being done. Questions such as:
Q. Have the members of the Commission made up their minds, at least with respect to the broad outlines, making the whole exercise simply an effort by elected officials to escape political accountability?Q. Why is the Commission apparently working so closely with billionaire Peter G. Peterson, who served in the Nixon administration and who has a clear ideological agenda?Q. Mr. Peterson has been on a decades-long crusade against Social Security. The day after the first meeting of the commission, which focused heavily on the need to cut Social Security, the co-chairs and two other members of the commission participated in a Peterson event that reinforced the same message. A Peterson-funded foundation is supplying commission staff. And Peterson?s foundation is funding America Speaks to develop a series of high-profile town halls across the country to host ?a national discussion to find common ground on tough choices about our federal budget.? (For more background about Mr. Peterson, see William Greider in the Nation on Looting Social Security — Part 2.)
This is our recommended must-read (and forward) of the week.
Foreign Bankers, Low Hanging Fruit and Social Security
In these days of billion dollar public relations campaigns designed to convince the American people that somehow Social Security must foot the bill for a decade of unrelated fiscal failures, the headlines hardly surprise us anymore. But today on CNN Money we came across something which has really set the bar for balanced media coverage at a new low.Jeanne Sahadi?s ?Fixing Social Security: the Low Hanging Fruit? reads like a Peterson Foundation News Release. Quoting liberally from the multi-billionaire anti-entitlement crusader and the director of another Peterson funded group, the Concord Coalition, provides lop-sided sources for a story about Social Security. Surely CNN could have found at least one Social Security expert in Washington to balance the anti-Social Security rhetoric? Rhetoric like:
?it (cutting Social Security) would be a confidence builder with our foreign lenders? Peter Peterson, Peterson Foundation?They could begin with Social Security, which oddly enough has gone from being the ?third rail of American politics? to the low-hanging fruit? Robert Bixby, Concord Coalition
These ?experts? Sahadi consulted view Social Security cuts as low-hanging fruit and a confidence builder for foreign bankers …really? Is that really all there is to this story? How about a quote reminding CNN viewers and its online readers that Social Security hasn?t contributed one dime to our current fiscal mess–that Social Security is funded by contributions from American workers, not federal dollars? How about a quote from an economist or Social Security policy expert explaining that what fiscal hawks really want is for Washington to renege on its repayment to the Social Security trust fund?a trust fund built up by contributions from America?s workers over decades and now made to be the scapegoat for failed borrow and spend policies, skyrocketing health care costs, two wars, tax cuts for the wealthy and a Wall Street run amok (which ultimately collapsed our economy).Robert Creamer had this analysis in Huffington Post:
Frankly, I’m getting pretty sick of hearing guys who make ten million dollar bonuses on Wall Street tell Social Security recipients who make $13,000 a year that they have to “tighten their belts” because we “can’t afford them.” Let’s remember that the Wall Street types that make deficit reduction an end in itself are the same geniuses whose reckless speculation caused the collapse of the economy, cost eight million Americans their jobs and cost retirees tens of billions in pensions. You don’t see the people who caused this catastrophe “sacrificing” or “tightening their belts” for the good of the national economy.
This view, any many more like it, may not have the billion dollar backing of the Peterson Foundation, but to CNN, and for that matter, all news outlets, it?s value is intrinsic to the public?s demand for fair and balanced reporting.
This Check Really is in the Mail
Over eight million seniors each year are trapped in the Part D donut hole –a cruel coverage gap where they pay premiums but get no drug coverage. It?s a provision only insurers could love and was included in the legislation which created Part D. Closing that donut hole has been on of our top legislative priorities and one of the most beneficial improvements included in healthcare reform legislation.In just days, the first step in the gradual phase out to close that gap begins. 80,000 seniors who?ve already fallen into the donut hole this year will begin receiving the first rebate checksnext week to help close their coverage gap. The $250 checks will continue to go to beneficiaries as more fall into the donut hole throughout 2010. Donut hole checks will generally be sent out every quarter. Although it is always possible for checks to be delayed, below is the planned schedule for distributing payments:
| If you fall into the “donut hole” by: | Your check will likely be sent by : |
| March 30, 2010 | June 10, 2010 |
| June 30, 2010 | September 15, 2010 |
| September 30, 2010 | December 15, 2010 |
| December 30, 2010 | March 15, 2011 |
We?ve provided more details about the new rebate in a fact sheet on our NCPSSM website.Starting in 2011, people who reach the doughnut hole will receive a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs. That means the typical senior will save $700 next year thanks to health reform legislation. By 2020, the doughnut hole will be eliminated.What this reform will ultimately do is put real health care dollars back into the pockets of seniors who need them and not to the insurers who?ve profited for years from this flawed provision. Check out the CMS brochure for beneficiaries here.
Still Confused about Health Reform?
Many Medicare beneficiaries are and it’s no wonder given all the misinformation swirling aroundhealth reform legislation.Today Congressional leadership and the administration have teamed up to help seniors understand how health reform will impact Medicare.
?Older Americans are dependent on Medicare for their health coverage. So seniors are especially susceptible to misinformation that Medicare is threatened by reforms. They are anxious and looking for information and they absolutely need a reliable place where they can get their questions answered accurately. It?s critical that seniors get the facts about provisions that will benefit them as soon as next month.? Barbara B. Kennelly, President/CEO
For 84-year-old Ben Williamowsky, the health care reform debate was often confusing and frustrating. As a retired dentist, he understands our current health system well, yet was discouraged by the amount of misinformation being targeted to seniors, during the debate and even now. Williamowsky described his frustration at a Capitol Hill news conference hosted by House Speaker, Nancy Pelosi today:
?I?m old enough that I remember what it was like in the early days after Medicare was created ? when similar scare tactics were used ? threatening seniors with all sorts of bad things if Medicare was enacted. None of them happened. Doctors didn?t go out of business or stop seeing seniors. In fact, life was much better for millions of seniors who desperately needed health coverage and today Medicare is a tremendous success story. But not everyone remembers history the way I do. That?s why we absolutely need someplace we can trust to answer our questions and dispel the false rumors about this new law. ? Dr. Ben Williamowsky, Medicare Recipient
Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius described a new brochure being mailed to Medicare beneficiaries to help them sort fact from fiction, avoid scammers who want to profit from seniors? confusion and give beneficiaries the information they need to take advantage of historic reforms in the donut hole, preventative services and more.The National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare is committed to providing America?s seniors with updated and detailed analyses of how healthcare reform legislation will affect their medical coverage in Medicare. In our newly released web video, ?Health Reform and Seniors?, we describe many of the provisions in health reform which will touch the lives of seniors, some as soon as next year. The video is available on the National Committee?s YouTube Channeland will also be made available to seniors groups, town hall meetings, and grassroots events.This video supplements the National Committee?s popular newsletter, Secure Retirement, which provides detailed coverage of health care reform in its spring issue. In fact, we?ve run a second printing of this publication due to very high demand from seniors nationwide.
America’s Budget Matters (So Does Yours)
When Older Americans Monthwas established in 1963, only 17 million Americans had reached their 65th birthdays. About a third of older Americans lived in poverty and there were few programs to meet their needs. Today, our senior population has more than doubled and thanks to the passage of Medicare and the Older Americans Act, our nation is much better prepared to help ensure older Americans age strong and live long. But did you know that according to the National Academy of Sciences almost 19% of seniors still live in poverty? That?s nearly 7 million seniors.This recession has hit America?s retirees especially hard as they?ve seen their savings decimated, home values plummet, healthcare costs skyrocket and face potentially two years with no cost of living increase.However, the fiscal hawks in Washington who hope to use seniors? programs (especially Social Security) to balance the federal books, seldom mention these fiscal facts. Today in celebration of Older Americans month, we?re joining other senior issues bloggers led by Wider Opportunities for Womenfor a day of blogging on the fiscalrealities facing America?s seniors. It?s vital that we understand more about our nation?s fiscal picture than what we?re being told by those leading a billion dollar crusade to cut Social Security.The American people have been bombarded with a steady stream of pronouncements that Social Security is bankrupt, broken, or just too generous.In truth, what these folks really mean is that they don?t Washington to honor its obligations to the Social Security trust fund. America?s seniors want fiscal sanity to return to Washington but there?s nothing sane about cutting programs, which touch the lives of virtually every American family, while ignoring the true causes of our current fiscal failures.Today, the President?s Fiscal Commission holds its second public meeting following a month?s worth of closed-door meetings. We?ve written extensively about this commission, it?s mission, and member makeupbefore. Our President/CEO, Barbara Kennelly, also continues to remindeveryone thatSocial Security isn?t the trouble and it shouldn?t be the target:
?If this commission?s goal is to get our nation?s fiscal house in order then its attention should be on programs which contribute to our debt and the revenue reforms necessary to improve the federal balance sheet. Unfortunately, too much attention thus far has been focused on using Social Security as the piggy bank for fiscal reform. Let?s be clear about this, Social Security has not contributed one dime to our current fiscal woes because that money was contributed by America?s workers over decades. Cutting benefits under the guise of ?fiscal responsibility? is anything but responsible during a time when retirees and near retirees are still suffering the effects of this recession?…Barbara B. Kennelly, President/CEO
We posted the first in a series of web videos on our YouTube channel addressing Social Security and the role it does (and in this case doesn?t ) play in our ongoing fiscal debate. ?Social Security ? Yours, Mine & Ours? reminds us all who really funds Social Security–the generations of American workers who?ve contributed $2.6 trillion dollars and counting to the Social Security trust fund. Dollars which have been promised to America?s retirees not Washington or Wall Street.Which brings us back to today?s blogging theme… America?s Budget Matters and So Does Yours. It’s vital that citizens, of all ages, take the time to educated themselves about the true causes of our current deficits and the what proposals currently being considered in Washington will mean to their day-to-day lives.
A Social Security Must-Read
Our friends, Nancy Altman and Eric Kingson, have written a wonderfully clear description of the presidential Fiscal Commission, its goals and make-up.
President Obama and the leadership in Congress have delegated enormous, unaccountable authority to 18 unrepresentative, inordinately wealthy individuals. The 18 individuals are meeting regularly, in secret, behind closed doors, until safely beyond this year?s mid-term election. If they reach agreement, their proposal will be voted on in December by a lame duck Congress, without the benefit of open hearings and deliberations in the pertinent committees and without the opportunity for open debate and amendment on the floors of the House and Senate. Despite the speed and lack of accountability, the legislation will affect, in substantial ways, every man, woman, and child in this nation.
Their piece in Nieman Watchdog is geared toward the press to encourage some serious question-asking that — so far–isnot being done. Questions such as:
Q. Have the members of the Commission made up their minds, at least with respect to the broad outlines, making the whole exercise simply an effort by elected officials to escape political accountability?Q. Why is the Commission apparently working so closely with billionaire Peter G. Peterson, who served in the Nixon administration and who has a clear ideological agenda?Q. Mr. Peterson has been on a decades-long crusade against Social Security. The day after the first meeting of the commission, which focused heavily on the need to cut Social Security, the co-chairs and two other members of the commission participated in a Peterson event that reinforced the same message. A Peterson-funded foundation is supplying commission staff. And Peterson?s foundation is funding America Speaks to develop a series of high-profile town halls across the country to host ?a national discussion to find common ground on tough choices about our federal budget.? (For more background about Mr. Peterson, see William Greider in the Nation on Looting Social Security — Part 2.)
This is our recommended must-read (and forward) of the week.
Foreign Bankers, Low Hanging Fruit and Social Security
In these days of billion dollar public relations campaigns designed to convince the American people that somehow Social Security must foot the bill for a decade of unrelated fiscal failures, the headlines hardly surprise us anymore. But today on CNN Money we came across something which has really set the bar for balanced media coverage at a new low.Jeanne Sahadi?s ?Fixing Social Security: the Low Hanging Fruit? reads like a Peterson Foundation News Release. Quoting liberally from the multi-billionaire anti-entitlement crusader and the director of another Peterson funded group, the Concord Coalition, provides lop-sided sources for a story about Social Security. Surely CNN could have found at least one Social Security expert in Washington to balance the anti-Social Security rhetoric? Rhetoric like:
?it (cutting Social Security) would be a confidence builder with our foreign lenders? Peter Peterson, Peterson Foundation?They could begin with Social Security, which oddly enough has gone from being the ?third rail of American politics? to the low-hanging fruit? Robert Bixby, Concord Coalition
These ?experts? Sahadi consulted view Social Security cuts as low-hanging fruit and a confidence builder for foreign bankers …really? Is that really all there is to this story? How about a quote reminding CNN viewers and its online readers that Social Security hasn?t contributed one dime to our current fiscal mess–that Social Security is funded by contributions from American workers, not federal dollars? How about a quote from an economist or Social Security policy expert explaining that what fiscal hawks really want is for Washington to renege on its repayment to the Social Security trust fund?a trust fund built up by contributions from America?s workers over decades and now made to be the scapegoat for failed borrow and spend policies, skyrocketing health care costs, two wars, tax cuts for the wealthy and a Wall Street run amok (which ultimately collapsed our economy).Robert Creamer had this analysis in Huffington Post:
Frankly, I’m getting pretty sick of hearing guys who make ten million dollar bonuses on Wall Street tell Social Security recipients who make $13,000 a year that they have to “tighten their belts” because we “can’t afford them.” Let’s remember that the Wall Street types that make deficit reduction an end in itself are the same geniuses whose reckless speculation caused the collapse of the economy, cost eight million Americans their jobs and cost retirees tens of billions in pensions. You don’t see the people who caused this catastrophe “sacrificing” or “tightening their belts” for the good of the national economy.
This view, any many more like it, may not have the billion dollar backing of the Peterson Foundation, but to CNN, and for that matter, all news outlets, it?s value is intrinsic to the public?s demand for fair and balanced reporting.