Labor & Employment Law

Seniors: Join Biden in Medicare/Health Care Reform Conference Call

By Mike Hall

Vice President Joe Biden and Health and Human Services Secretary Kathleen Sebelius will host a conference call Thursday, Sept. 23, at 11:30 a.m. EDT to talk about how the new health care reform law helps seniors on Medicare.

The law lowers the cost of prescription drugs and provides free preventive benefits in Medicare as of Jan. 1, 2011. The new law:

• Provides a $250 rebate to those in the Medicare ?donut hole? (those checks started going out earlier this summer) 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.

For more on the new health care reform law from the Alliance for Retired Americans, click here.

Thursday is also the day several key components of the law go into effect. Biden and Sebelius will discuss the new Patients’ Bill of Rights provisions, which put an end to some of the worst insurance abuses and put consumers?not insurance companies?in control of their health care.

To join in the call on the Affordable Health Care Act, call 888-455-9735. Tell your friends, neighbors and family members.

If you have questions you would like answered, e-mail public@who.eop.gov or externalaffairs@hhs.gov.

Full post as published by AFL-CIO NOW BLOG on September 21, 2010 (boomark / email).