New Health Care Law Gives Medicare Lots to Celebrate at 45   by Tula Connell, Jul 30, 2010

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Medicare turns 45 today—and as Dr. Don Berwick, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, points out:

“Before Medicare, millions of the nation’s seniors were uninsured. Since then, Medicare has been the bedrock of the nation’s health care system.”

The new health care legislation Congress passed this year gives Medicare—and the seniors who depend upon it—lots to celebrate, because the law enhances Medicare coverage. But “unfortunately, too many retirees remain skeptical and unaware of these new benefits,” says Edward F. Coyle, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans.

This is the shameful legacy of sustained scare tactics and falsehoods aimed at older Americans during the health care debate.

Medicare’s 45th birthday is a good time to check out how the health care legislation boosts benefits, and the Alliance, which has prepared an extensive series of fact sheets on these new benefits, says the new health care law:

• Provides a $250 rebate to those in the Medicare “doughnut hole,” and in subsequent years fully closes this coverage gap.

• Ends co-payments and deductibles for annual physicals, mammograms, colonoscopies and other preventive screenings.

• Helps early retirees (ages 55 to 64) better afford and keep their private health insurance.

• Enables middle-class families to better afford the high costs of long-term care.

• Strengthens the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by ending wasteful taxpayer subsidies and overpayments to private insurance companies who operate Medicare Advantage programs.

So, why do so many Republican Senate candidates oppose Medicare? In fact, nine Republican candidates would end Medicare, think it’s a mistake or believe it is Soviet socialism. They are: Sharron Angle in Nevada, Rand Paul in Kentucky, Dan Coats in Indiana, David Vitter in Louisiana, Ron Johnson in Wisconsin, John Boozman in Arkansas, Roy Blunt in Missouri and Jane Norton and Ken Buck in Colorado.

Angle has said that Medicare needs to be phased out, while Johnson would eliminate traditional Medicare by limiting eligibility. Paul thinks it’s out and out socialism. Find out more about why these Senate Republican candidates would kill Medicare here.

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