Coalition Urges Elimination Of Medicare Two-Year Waiting Period

Over 75 health advocacy organizations this month launched the Coalition to End the Two-Year Wait for Medicare, sending a letter to health leaders in the House and Senate demanding that next year’s health reform efforts make a priority of covering people with disabilities who are struggling to survive as they wait for Medicare coverage.

Close to 1.5 million people are stuck in this waiting period annually. ”Nearly 40 percent of these individuals are without health insurance coverage at some point during their wait for Medicare; 24 percent have no health insurance during this entire period. Many cannot afford to pay COBRA premiums to maintain coverage from their former employer, and private coverage on the individual market is unavailable or too expensive for this high-cost population. The economic downturn makes it difficult for states to extend Medicaid coverage beyond the most impoverished people with disabilities,” the coalition letter reads. “No one with disabilities severe enough to qualify for SSDI should be without health insurance.” The coalition includes organizations such as the American Cancer Society – Cancer Action Network, Amputee Coalition of America, Alzheimer’s Association, Easter Seals and the Medicare Rights Center.

In 1972, when Congress expanded Medicare to include people with disabilities, it created a “waiting period” that requires people to wait 24 months from when they begin receiving their Social Security Disability Insurance (SSDI) payments before they can receive health care through Medicare.

Costs for the elimination of the waiting period are estimated to be around $9 billion annually. These costs would be offset by about $4 billion in Medicaid savings.

In the Senate, S.2102 is sponsored by Senator Jeff Bingaman (D-NM), and cosponsored by 23 senators, including President-elect Barack Obama. In the House, H.R. 154, sponsored by Representative Gene Green (D-TX) has 103 cosponsors. This legislation would eliminate the waiting period through a ten-year phase out. 

- From “ Coalition Urges Elimination Of Medicare Two-Year Waiting Period”, MEDICARE WATCH, a biweekly electronic newsletter of the Medicare Rights Center . Volume 11, Issue 24, November 25, 2008, from the Medicare Rights Center, November 25, 2008.

 

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