Matthew Bieniek
The Cumberland Times-News Wed Jan 05, 2011, 10:00 AM EST
— CUMBERLAND — Senior citizens in Allegany and Garrett counties will reap significant benefits from changes to Medicare that went into effect with the new year, said U.S. Sen. Benjamin Cardin, part of last year’s health care reform law titled the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act. To protect those benefits, Cardin said he’ll fight hard against a Republican plan to attempt to repeal the law.
Cardin offered his take on the law and its possible repeal during a conference call on Tuesday from his Washington office, in which the Times-News participated.
“The Republican plan to repeal is hard to understand from a position of policy. I understand the politics,” Cardin said. Republicans have introduced legislation to repeal the health care law and made repeal one of their top priorities in the new Congress. “For Marylanders, the repeal of the Affordable Care Act would have a devastating effect on our seniors,” he said.
One portion of the law designed to help out seniors struggling with the high costs of prescription drugs was among the provisions that went into effect Jan. 1, he said. The changes seek to close the so-called “doughnut hole” which can hit seniors hard, Cardin said. Before the new law passed, Medicare participants had 75 percent of their medication costs paid by Medicare after an initial deductible of $310. However, once drug costs reached $2,800 in a calendar year, Medicare stopped paying for prescriptions, creating a gap until prescription costs hit $4,550, according to an article by Jonathan Blum, deputy administrator and director for the Center of Medicare at the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services posted at healthcare.gov, a federal government website.
“Some people hit it within a month or two,” said Michelle Holzer, speaking about the doughnut hole. Holzer works for the Senior Health Insurance Assistance Program, Maryland Department of Aging. Cardin said about 32,000 Maryland citizens find themselves in that position each year. The new law helps fill the gap, said Cardin, by implementing a 50 percent discount on brand-name drugs prescribed by a doctor.
The new rule will provide greater benefits than the $250 rebate checks sent last year to qualifying seniors as part of a doughnut hole reimbursement, he said. “By 2020 the doughnut hole will be completely eliminated,” he said, if the law is not repealed.
The portion of the law closing the gap would benefit 944 senior citizens in Allegany County and save them more than $8 million between 2011 and 2020, according to numbers from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services of the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. In Garrett County the new law would affect 338 senior citizens and save them more than $3 million over the same time period. The benefit should be calculated automatically, said Cardin, and won’t require additional paperwork by senior citizens, he said.
Seniors “will pay a real price for repeal if it goes forward,” he said. Cardin said he thought repeal unlikely, but he said his legislative experience is that sometimes bills pass when you don’t expect them to pass.
Additional provisions of the law taking effect this year include free yearly wellness exams, Cardin said.
Contact Matthew Bieniek at mbieniek@times-news.com
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