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Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Where AARP Stands on Health Care
By Kelly Clark, AARP New Hampshire State Director
AARP is a nonpartisan, nonprofit membership organization representing 40 million members nationwide and nearly 240,000 in the Granite State.
AARP is fighting for our members today, just as we’ve fought for them for the last 50 years.
We believe it is essential that final health reform legislation strictly limits age discrimination and makes coverage affordable for older Americans, protects Medicare and closes the Medicare drug benefit “doughnut hole” coverage gap, and strengthens support for home- and community-based long-term care services.
Specifically, AARP is fighting to:
Protect Medicare – AARP is fighting to ensure seniors get the benefits they’ve earned and to strengthen Medicare for future generations. We are fighting to ensure Medicare pays doctors fairly so seniors can keep the doctor of their choice or more easily find a doctor if they don’t have one. We’re also working to fill the gaps in today’s benefit package, such as closing the Part D “doughnut hole” coverage gap and eliminating out-of-pocket costs for important preventive care like cancer screenings and diabetes tests.
Preserve Choice – AARP knows how important it is for our members to have the freedom to choose their own doctor. That’s why we’re fighting to ensure doctors get paid fairly. Without health reform, Medicare doctors will be forced to take a 21 percent pay cut. We also support giving primary care providers bonus payments, which will help ensure that people with chronic conditions can get the care they need.
Limit Age-Rating and Enhance Affordability – AARP cannot support health reform legislation that fails to strictly limit age rating to ensure that coverage is affordable for older Americans. Many older Americans today cannot find affordable coverage because insurers in most states charge much higher rates based on age. Strict age rating limits are one of the most powerful ways to make coverage more affordable without increasing health reform legislation’s total cost. AARP is fighting for no more than 2:1 age rating in final health reform legislation.
We’re also fighting to ensure that older Americans who need extra help paying for premiums and out-of-pocket costs can get it. AARP is also fighting to ensure no one is denied coverage because of a pre-existing condition or gets dropped if they get sick.
Make Prescription Drugs More Affordable — AARP is fighting to stop drug companies from over-charging you by enabling drug price negotiation; allowing safe, legal importation of lower-priced prescription drugs from abroad; and bringing generic versions of important biologic drugs – costly medications for diseases such as cancer, diabetes, and multiple sclerosis – to market in a safe and timely way. Forcing consumers and taxpayers to wait 12 years or more for affordable biologics is far too long to deny patients the access to, or financial relief from, these costly treatments.
Create Transitional Care Benefit – AARP is fighting for evidence-based transitional care services for Medicare beneficiaries to reduce unnecessary re-hospitalizations, improve quality, and support beneficiaries and their caregivers. This is an important element that, coupled with payment policy changes, can help reduce preventable hospital readmissions and help people safely return to their homes after a hospital stay.
Eliminate Waste – AARP believes we must reduce waste in Medicare so we can ensure today’s seniors continue to get the benefits they’ve been promised. We need to stop Medicare from paying billions in subsidies to private insurance companies. And we must make sure the government cracks down on abuse by those who fraudulently bill Medicare. By eliminating waste, we can protect benefits and fill in some of the gaps in Medicare
AARP’s mission is to make our members’ voices heard in national debates that affect their future. That’s why we’ve made it clear to members of Congress across New Hampshire and across the nation that it is critical to enact into law this year health reform legislation that protects and improves Medicare and guarantees affordable coverage.
Tags: AARP, affordable coverage, Citizens Health Initiative, evidence-based, freedom to choose, lowere priced prescription drugs, medicare, Protect medicare
Kelly,
It’s great to read about NH’s AARP mission.
AARP has had a significant impact on advocating for improved quality of care in many states via supporting legislation that mandates transparency of healthcare outcome data (New Jersey is a good example…they are now publishing infection, medical error, complication rates by surgery, etc.) This is very useful information; especially for the Medicare population who makes up 47% of hospital revenue.
The recent release of NH Medicare mortality data could be a guiding light for improvement in NH. Our mortality rates for pneumonia are alarming, as were our hospital re-admission rates.
I would like to see CHI and AARP reach out to and engage consumers. There are lofty goals and great discussions about a paradigm shift in NH healthcare, but to succeed we need consumers/patients to be at the center and truly the priority in both policy and practice.
What an outstanding article. I just thought I would share that.
Very good post.Really looking forward to reading more.