As Medicare Enrollment Deadline Nears, Etheridge Advocates for Extension
As Medicare Enrollment Deadline Nears, Etheridge Advocates for Extension
With only four days remaining for seniors to enroll in Medicare Part D prescription medicine plans, U.S. Rep. Bob Etheridge called again for the Bush Administration to extend the deadline from May 15 to December 31, 2006.
"With only four days remaining to enroll in Part D prescription medicine plans, thousands of North Carolina seniors who are eligible have not yet enrolled," said Etheridge. "With 38 different plans for North Carolina seniors to choose from, this plan is simply too confusing and complicated. I urge the Bush Administration to extend the deadline, so that seniors will not get hit with a penalty. Our seniors should not have to pay extra because Medicare Part D was designed to be too confusing for the average person to understand."
As of May 5, 326,000 North Carolina seniors who are eligible had not enrolled. Seniors who enroll after May 15 will face a 1 percent penalty, a tax they will have to pay on their prescriptions for the rest of their lives.
A new poll by the Kaiser Family Foundation, an independent health care research group, found that 45 percent of seniors do not know that May 15 is the deadline. Only 53 percent know that enrolling after the deadline will cost them 1 percent more per month.
Etheridge is cosponsoring the Medicare Informed Choice Act, which extends the enrollment deadline from May 15, 2006, to December 31, 2006, and allows seniors to change plans one time if they are unhappy with their choice. The bill also protects retirees from being dropped by their former employer's plan during the first year of the implementation of the plan.
Without these changes, beneficiaries will face a late-enrollment penalty if they enroll in a plan after May 15, 2006, could lose employer-provided retiree health benefits if they enroll in some Part D plans, and could be prohibited from switching plans until 2007.
http://www.house.gov/etheridge/Press-MedicareExtension.htm