July 22, 2013—Today, a panel of health care experts gathered for a Congressional briefingorganized by the Alliance for Health Reform and the Kaiser Family Foundation on recent proposals to restructure Medicare cost sharing.
At today’s briefing Joe Baker, president of the Medicare Rights Center, stated, “We are deeply concerned about the effects of further cost shifting to people with Medicare. While we agree that much can be done to improve and simplify the Medicare benefit, we believe that many plans to combine the Medicare Part A and Part B deductibles alongside other cost sharing hikes pose substantial risks to the health and economic security of people with Medicare.“
Baker continued, “Imposing financial hardship on those who cannot endure added costs would leave many beneficiaries with no choice but to self-ration health care by going without needed care altogether or sacrifice other basic needs, like buying groceries or paying the rent. At a time when Medicare cost growth has slowed to historic levels, there is little justification for burdening beneficiaries with added costs.”
Today, half of all people with Medicare—25 million older adults and people with disabilities—are living on annual incomes of $22,500 or less, and the average Medicare household already spends 15 percent of annual income on health care costs. Faced with higher costs, beneficiaries living on fixed incomes are forced to make decisions on the basis of cost—not the basis of need. Almost 40 years of data consistently demonstrates that, while higher out-of-pocket costs certainly deter health care utilization, they deter utilization of needed care as well as unneeded care indiscriminately.
“Rather than shifting costs to people with Medicare—an approach that yields short-term and harmful savings—Congress should focus its attention on reforms that diminish wasteful Medicare spending and continue to encourage the transformation of our health care system from one that rewards high volume care to one that rewards high value care,” Baker concluded.
