Blog Covid 19 Clinic Updates 20664On Monday, the CBO released its highly anticipated analysis of the BCRA health reform legislation released late last week by Republican leaders in the Senate. The report shows that if signed into law, the bill would leave 22 million more individuals uninsured than current law, and it would hit older, poorer people the hardest especially those between the ages of fifty and sixty-four with less than ,200 in annual income. Those individuals would see health insurance premium increases of 200 percent or more under the BCRA..Increasing the frequency of Continuing Disability Reviews. Additional funding for CDRs, which are conducted periodically to determine if enrollees still qualify for DI benefits, would return significant savings to the program according to recent projections..annual "wellness" exam and you pay nothing, if your doctor "accepts assignment" … Continued
Tag Wapokff Surveys"The 6.7 percent increase in the Part B premium is the largest since 2006 for a year in which a COLA is payable," Johnson says. There have been bigger jumps in Part B premiums as recently as 2016 and 2017, but those were two years in which there was no or almost no COLA paid. This situation can cause unusually high Part B premium spikes..First, one new cosponsor Representative Debbie Dingell signed on to the bipartisan Consumer Price Index for Elderly Consumers Act, bringing the total up to fifty-one. If adopted, the bill would base Social Security cost-of-living adjustments on the more fair and adequate CPI-E. Currently, COLAs are based on the Consumer Price Index for Urban Wage Earners, and they fail to keep pace with the inflation experienced by older Americans..Drug prices in the U.S. are much higher than in other developed countries, because there are no federal laws regulating prices. In fact, the law specifically forbids Medicare from negotiating prices on behalf of its beneficiaries. Allowing the importation of prescription drugs from countries such as Canada, where drugs are less expensive, has the potential to lower drug costs for both U.S. consumers and the federal government. … Continued
