Resources for People in Medicare
Source: AARP.org | September, 2009
Health Action Now!
Make sure our leaders make meaningful health reform a top priority this year. Tell Congress that NOW is the time for health reform!
AARP: Health Reform and You
AARP: Where We Stand
Updates From Washington
- Read health care reform legislation pending in Congress
- Read CBO cost estimates for health care legislation
- June 2009 MedPac report to Congress
- Independent Analyses: Kaiser Family Foundation, a nonpartisan research organization, compares health-reform proposals pending in Congress.
Myths VS. Facts
- Politifact, an independent, Pulitzer Prize-winning fact-checking Web site, evaluates claims made about the impact of health care reform
- Factcheck.org, a project of the University of Pennsylvania’s Annenberg Public Policy Center
- Health Care Reform: The Assault on Truth
AARP on How Health Reform Will Help People in Medicare
As Washington edges closer to a final health care reform bill, AARP looks forward to working with Members of Congress from both parties to ensure any final health care reform bill meets the needs of older Americans by:
•Protecting guaranteed Medicare benefits;
•Ensuring seniors can see the doctor of their choice or find a new doctor if they need one by improving Medicare’s payment system to doctors;
•Making sure that no one—not government or your insurance company—can come between you and your doctor
•Preventing seniors from having to pay thousands in out-of-pocket costs for their prescription drugs by closing the Medicare Part D “doughnut hole” and allowing Medicare to negotiate with drug makers for lower drug prices.
•Requiring Medicare and insurance companies to provide for important preventive services like screenings for diabetes, cancer and osteoporosis free of charge.
•Improving the coordination of care for people with chronic health conditions.
•Aggressively cracking down on waste, fraud and inefficiency so we can make Medicare more financially sound so it is there for future generations of retirees.
•Providing benefits to help seniors and people with disabilities live in their own homes and communities.
•Ensuring that people who already have coverage through their employers, including retirees, don’t lose that coverage.
AARP Resources
- AARP Bulletin on help for people in Medicare in House and Senate bills . Also,health care reform could provide more doctors for older Americans how health care reform could provide more doctors for older Americans; create a new benefit to help people in Medicare avoid unnecessary re-hospitalizations; and lower drug costs for people in the Part D Doughnut hole.
- AARP Public Policy Institute research on reducing waste, fraud and abuse in Medicare; a proposed Medicare benefit to help people avoid unnecessary re-hospitalizations; the need for better chronic care coordination; and an analysis of out-of-pocket spending by people in Medicare.
- Glossary of Medicare terms
