Legislative Update: TSCL Member Grass-Roots Action Helps Return Funding To Medicare

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Legislative Update: TSCL Member Grass-Roots Action Helps Return Funding To Medicare

TSCL grass-root activism in 2000 played an important role in successfully returning funding to Medicare cut from the program by 1997 legislation. Last year legislation restored some of the cuts in Medicare compensation made to nursing homes, home health care agencies, and companies that provide rehabilitation therapy.

In 1999 we reported that new $1,500 caps on physical therapy could make it difficult for Medicare recipients with conditions such as stroke to get the treatment they needed for recovery because the average stroke victim requires about $2,788 worth of therapy. Later that year we reported that new restrictive Medicare payment system had led some health care providers to avoid patients with costly medical needs such as Alzheimer's or chemotherapy.

For the first time since the program started over 30 years ago, however, less money was spent in the first six months of 1999 fiscal year than the previous year. TSCL believes this is evidence that the 1997 cuts indeed went more deeply than originally intended.

More work is ahead that would make prescription drugs more affordable. One problem contributing to skyrocketing costs of pharmaceuticals is the pervasive government and industry policy that favors the proliferation of expensive brand-name drugs while delaying competition from less expensive generic drugs. According to industry statistics, generic drugs are dispensed 60 percent of the time, but account for only 10 percent of the overall expenditures. The greater availability of generic drugs would mean significant savings to seniors. TSCL favors measures that would expedite introduction and greater use of generics.

TSCL thanks our members for your letters, cards, and calls to your Members of Congress, and urges you to continue. Keeping up the pressure now is important to win more affordable prescription drugs in the future.

This article first appeared in Volume 5, Issue 2 of "The Social Security and Medicare Advisor" newsletter (December/January/2000). To receive future editions of "The Advisor" in its special, free e-mail version, please click here.