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05-26-09
Washington, DC
Over Seventy-Five
Patient Advocacy Groups Support Phasing Out the
Two-Year Medicare Waiting Period by April 2011
The
Coalition to End the Two-Year Wait for Medicare,
a group of organizations that work to ensure
access to health care for people with
disabilities, praised the Senate Finance
Committee for addressing the two-year Medicare
waiting period for people with disabilities in
its health reform proposal to extend affordable
health care coverage to all Americans.
The Committee put forth four options, and the coalition
voiced its strongest support for the option that
would phase out the waiting period by April
2011.
“No one with a disability severe enough to qualify for
SSDI should be without health coverage,” says
the coalition in its letter addressed to
Senators Max Baucus (D-MT) and Charles Grassley
(R-IA). “The policy options presented in
Expanding Health Care Coverage: Proposals to
Provide Affordable Coverage to All Americans
represent a recognition by the Committee that
the waiting period for coverage is unjustifiable
and a commitment to move towards its
elimination.”
The four proposed options are:
(1) halve the
waiting period to 12 months;
(2) phase out
the waiting period by July 2015;
(3) phase out
the waiting period in six-month increments, with
total elimination by April 2011;
(4) maintain the
waiting period for people with access to private
insurance (not including COBRA coverage from a
former employer) and phase it out for everyone
else.
The coalition
cited new research by the Commonwealth Fund
showing a severe decline in the health of people
with disabilities in the first year of the
waiting period. Thirteen percent die while in
the waiting period, never accessing the Medicare
benefit that they funded through their taxes
during their working years.
The Coalition’s letter can
be found at
www.medicarerights.org/pdf/End-the-2-yr-wait-letter-to-Senate-Finance.pdf.
The Senate Finance Committee’s policy options
are at
http://finance.senate.gov/Roundtable/complete%20text%20of%20coverage%20policy%20options.pdf.
Medicare Rights
Center is a national, nonprofit consumer service
organization that works to ensure access to
affordable health care for older adults and
people with disabilities through counseling and
advocacy, educational programs, and public
policy initiatives.
520 Eighth Avenue, North
Wing, 3rd Floor ∙ New York, New York 10018
1224 M Street, NW, Suite 100 ∙ Washington, D.
C. 20005 ∙
www.medicarerights.org
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