Labor & Employment Law

New Brochure on Health Care Reform and Medicare Available

By Mike Hall

Seniors around the country who count on Medicare for their health coverage and have questions about how the new health care reform law impacts their coverage can find many of those answers in a new brochure that will be in their mailboxes soon or by downloading a copy here.

The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) is mailing the brochure to all traditional Medicare and Medicare Advantage enrollees. It assures beneficiaries that “the guaranteed benefits you currently receive will remain the same,” including choice of doctors. It outlines the key provisions and expanded benefits of the new law.

Kathleen Sebelius, secretary of health and human services, writes in an introduction that the new health care reform law will

provide you and your family greater savings and increased quality health care. It will also ensure accountability throughout the health care system so that you, your family, and your doctor?not insurance companies?have greater control over your care.

These are needed improvements that will keep Medicare strong and solvent. Your guaranteed Medicare benefits won’t change?whether you get them through Original Medicare or a Medicare Advantage plan. Instead, you will see new benefits and cost savings and an increased focus on quality to ensure that you get the care you need.

This year, people on Medicare who fall into the prescription drug donut hole?the gap in coverage when seniors must pay full price for their needed medications?will receive a $250 rebate check. Next year Medicare recipients in the donut hole will receive a 50 percent discount on covered brand-name prescription drugs. Health reform closes the donut hole entirely by 2020.

The new brochure also reminds beneficiaries that beginning next year, the new health care reform law ensures Medicare recipients will get free preventive care services like colorectal cancer screening and mammograms, in addition to a free annual wellness visit. It also points out that health care reform includes new tools to help fight fraud by helping Medicare crack down on criminals who are seeking to scam seniors and steal taxpayer dollars.

Download an English copy of the brochure here and click here for a Spanish version.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on May 25, 2010 (boomark / email).