There has been plenty of news in the last several
weeks about repealing and replacing the Affordable Care Act or Obamacare. When
the Affordable Care Act (ACA) was passed, most of the discussion focused on how
it would insure millions of citizens who did not have health insurance. What
was seldom mentioned in all the noise were the benefits ACA provided for older
adults.
More than a decade ago, knowing the hardship older
adults faced paying for prescription drugs, Congress, with a
strong push from the George W. Bush administration, passed the Medicare
Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act of 2003, which created
Medicare Part D.
Medicare
Part D covered for the first time a portion of the cost of most outpatient
prescription drugs which older adults often could not afford. But there was a
catch: a temporary gap in coverage described as the Donut Hole. In this donut hole,
the cost of prescription drugs between what the Part D prescription plan would
cover (up to $3700 in 2017), and when the out of pocket expenses reached an
amount considered catastrophic (which in 2017 is $4950), the Part D enrollees
were responsible for the total costs of their medications.
The ACA,
signed by President Obama in 2010, made prescription drugs more affordable for
many older adults by closing the donut hole in stages, eliminating it by 2020.
Since the ACA was passed in 2010, more than 11 million people have saved an
average of more than $2,100 per person on prescription drugs.
Even though the Republicans have been promising
to repeal and replace the ACA, they have not yet come to a consensus of how to
do it. There have been several proposals to replace the ACA and many including
Rep. Tom Price’s (who is President Trump’s Health and Human Services Secretary
nominee) Empowering Patients First Act, does not include the gradual elimination of the
donut hole in Medicare Part B as well as other benefits for Medicare recipients
such as screenings for breast and colorectal cancer, heart disease and
diabetes.
It is important that older adults of both
political parties advocate to include the provisions of the ACA that improve
the health of older adults in any new legislation, particularly the gradual
elimination of the Donut Hole, so no older adult must choose between their
critical prescriptions and their basic necessities.
Continuing
the countdown of “40 Great Things about Growing Older”. #16 – Looking Great at
any age. Maybe I am a little biased but looking back at my high school
yearbook, with the bouffant hairdos and the flattop haircuts, I think we look
much better now: wiser, more mature - with a few wrinkles to show we know what
we are talking about.
Tuesday
night music at the Center on February 14th will feature Martin and Friends
performing for your dancing and listening pleasure. Doors open at 6:00, music
starts at 6:30 and donations are appreciated.
"I
just want to say one word to you - just one word.... 'Plastics.'” was the
career advice told to Benjamin Braddock, played by Dustin Hoffman, in the 1967
movie The Graduate. (The winners of a
quilt raffle ticket each are Betsy Ayres, Jerry Phillips, Sandy Haechrel, and Mary
Davis.)
This
month I’m going to see if you remember the song lyrics from the 1950’s and the
1960’s – back in the day when you could understand the lyrics even with the
scratched records and simple transistor radios.
This
song is from the 1950’s and has an Oregon connection since the singer spent
part of his childhood on a farm in Dallas, Oregon before moving to Portland,
Oregon, where he attended high school.
For
this week’s “Remember When” question, what was the name of the song that
included the lyrics, “If your heartaches seem to hang around too long/ And your
blues keep getting bluer with each song/ Well now, remember sunshine can be
found
Behind
a cloudy sky/ So let your hair down and go right on and …”. Email your answer
to www.mcseniorcenter@gmail.com, leave a message at 541-296-4788 or mail it in on
the back of a postcard from Hopewell, Oregon.
Well,
it’s been another week, trying to remember to pick my feet up so I don’t trip
and fall head first into a snow bank. Until we meet again, remember everyone
has a piece of the truth.
"Always
laugh when you can. It is cheap medicine." -- Lord Byron
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