Re: [QUAD-L] Support Eliminating the 24-Month Waiting Period for Medicare

[David K. Kelmer]

Done!

 

With Love,

CtrlAltDel aka Dave
C4/5 Complete - 29 Years Post
Texas, USA

Lori Michaelson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote:

For those of you who expect to get MediCARE lickety split ... the 2-yr waiting list is still in force. Send the automated letter at the link below -- quick, simple, easy.   I added:   "Even though I am a quadriplegic ... I got my baccalaureate and became gainfully employed. During that time I was diagnosed with a worsening condition (syringomyelia) which has lowered my endurance and ultimately I had to stop working. I had to wait the 2 yrs to receive Medicare benefits and it was a wait unneccesarily long! I hate being unemployed with a degree but have no choice. America has Medicare for a reason ... why the wait??? Disability can strike anyone at anytime, just like it did FOR ME and for Ms. L."  Your Weekly Medicare Consumer Advocacy Update ACT NOW: Support Eliminating the 24-Month Waiting Period for Medicare June 9, 2005 • Volume 5, Issue 23  Ouch!   Disability can strike anyone at anytime, just like it did Ms. L.   At age 44, Ms. L had stomach pains.  She was diagnosed with life threatening pancreatic cancer.  Ms. L was forced to give up her job, and lost her employer health insurance.  She applied for Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) and five months later began receiving just over $700 a month in disability payments.  But this left her with too much income to qualify for Medicaid, and suddenly—after a lifetime of work—Ms. L. found herself among the 45 million Americans without health insurance.   Where was the Medicare coverage that she was expecting?   Under existing law, Medicare coverage for Ms. L would begin only if she survived for two years after she was awarded disability benefits.   So Ms. L could not afford treatment for the pancreatic cancer. She now wonders whether she will even live long enough for her Medicare coverage to begin.   Some 400,000 Americans under the age of 65 face disabling illness or injury without health coverage during their two year wait for Medicare coverage. They face life without health insurance, often for the first time, at the very moment when they need health care the most.  Unable to work, they qualify for SSDI, but these payments routinely push them above the income limits for Medicaid; private health insurance is either too expensive or denied to them outright.    These individuals—suffering from  cancer, HIV/AIDS, spinal cord injury, heart disease, stroke, severe mental illness or other catastrophic conditions following an accident—at best endure financial hardship and medical uncertainty while they wait for coverage.   Tragically, four percent of people languishing in the 24-month waiting period—16,000 people—die each year while waiting for their Medicare coverage to begin. Some of these deaths are certainly preventable.   Congress has already recognized that the 24-month waiting period can be a death sentence, and that it is wrong.  It has passed exceptions to the 24-month waiting period for people with amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS or Lou Gehrig’s disease) and end-stage renal disease (ESRD).   It’s time that Congress eliminated the waiting period.  Eliminating the 24-month wait for Medicare would provide individuals with disabilities stable, affordable and guaranteed health coverage to maintain, and often improve, their health.   It’s what a civilized society would do.     At press time Senators Mike DeWine, Republican of Ohio and Jeff Bingaman, Democrat of New Mexico, will introduce a bill today—“Ending the Medicare Disability Waiting Period Act of 2005”—that will phase out, over the next decade, the 24-month waiting period. It’s a start, and happily, a bi-partisan start.   The 24-month waiting period is a death sentence for too many Americans who worked hard, paid their dues and now need the health care that Medicare provides.   Click here  to tell your senators and representative that you support the elimination of the Medicare 24-month waiting period for people with disabilities. (We encourage you to personalize your letter.)   Medical Record According to tabulations of Social Security Administration data from nine states, an average of approximately 4 percent of SSDI beneficiaries die each year during the waiting period (“Elimination of Medicare's Waiting Period for Seriously Disabled Adults: Impact on Coverage and Costs,” The Commonwealth Fund, July 2003).   Over 1.2 million Americans with serious disabilities under age 65—including as many as 400,000 without health insurance—are currently in the two-year waiting period for Medicare coverage. Eliminating this two-year waiting period would provide stable health insurance to a vulnerable group of adults who are unable to work (“Elimination of Medicare's Waiting Period for Seriously Disabled Adults: Impact on Coverage and Costs,” The Commonwealth Fund, July 2003).   Adults under age 65 who qualify for Medicare based on disability suffer from a range of chronic illnesses: more than nine of 10 have one or more chronic diseases including arthritis, heart conditions, lung disease, cancer and severe mental illness. All are unable to work. By the time they obtain Medicare, most (77 percent) are poor or nearly poor (“Waiting Period for Medicare Leaves More Than 1.2 Million Seriously Disabled Americans Without Secure Health Insurance,” The Commonwealth Fund, July 2003).   Approximately 6 million people or 15 percent of the Medicare population is under 65 years old and disabled—a number estimated to expand to 17 percent, or 7.6 million people, by 2010 (Commonwealth Fund and Kaiser Family Foundation 2002).     Fast Relief: What You Can Do Tell your senator and representative that Medicare should provide an immediate, invaluable safety net for hundreds of thousands of Americans who become disabled and can no longer work    Click hereto send a letter today! (We encourage you to personalize your letter.)   ***** Don't Let Your Suffering Go Unnoticed Are you struggling to pay for your prescription drugs or get the health care you need? Work with the Medicare Rights Center to bring your story to the ears of policymakers, the press and the public in an effort to expose the shortcomings of the American health care system.  To learn more about how to make your voice heard in the national Medicare debate, visit www.medicarerights.org/hiddenlives.html.   The Louder Our Voice, the Stronger Our Message Asclepios—named for the Greek and Roman god of medicine who, acclaimed for his healing abilities, was at one point the most worshipped god in Greece—is a weekly action alert designed to keep you up to date with Medicare program and policy issues, and advance advocacy strategies to address them.  Please help build awareness of key Medicare consumer issues by forwarding this action alert to your friends and encouraging them to subscribe today, by writing to [EMAIL PROTECTED].   Medicare Rights Center (MRC) is the largest independent source of health care information and assistance in the United States for people with Medicare.  A national nonprofit founded in 1989, MRC helps older adults and people with disabilities get good, affordable health care. Please send comments and subscription requests to [EMAIL PROTECTED].