Medicare reforms benefit Mississippi

By By Chip Pickering / u.s. representative
Dec. 14, 2003
Earlier this month, Congress produced and President Bush signed the largest Medicare reform and improvement package in the program's 38-year history.
The legislation guarantees all senior citizens an affordable and voluntary prescription drug benefit, protects senior citizens' right to choose and direct their personal benefits package, and strengthens Medicare for all senior citizens and future generations.
I voted in favor of and support this Medicare package for: the protections it secures for Mississippi seniors, the rural health provisions that maintain and increase health delivery to Mississippians, and the market reforms that help individuals and businesses maintain coverage choice in insurance and health needs. These positive policies reduce long-term taxpayer costs.
Medicare reform will be evident in Mississippi. Beginning in January 2006, all of the more than 430,000 Mississippi Medicare beneficiaries gain access to a voluntary prescription drug benefit. Over a hundred-thousand Mississippi Medicare beneficiaries acquire previously unattainable drug coverage.
Before this summer, Mississippi seniors will be eligible for Medicare approved prescription drug discount cards. In exchange for a monthly premium of about $35, seniors now paying the full retail price for prescription drugs will be able to cut their drug costs roughly in half.
Medicare will save Mississippi $258 million over 8 years by assuming the prescription drug costs of 145,782 Mississippi beneficiaries formerly covered by Medicaid.
Medicare promotes preventive care and disease management including free "Welcome to Medicare" physical exams for Mississippi seniors, cholesterol and blood lipid screenings, and new disease management programs to keep our seniors healthy. And the act creates portable (job-to-job to retirement) health savings accounts which allow individuals, employers and family members to contribute to tax-free savings for lifetime health care needs.
This Medicare reform includes the largest rural health package ever contemplated by Congress and strengthens the role of local pharmacists as they counsel seniors.
We enhanced access to quality health care in rural areas by addressing the needs of beneficiaries as well as their health providers. The amount of reimbursement for hospitals in lower medical wage areas is increased and the Medicare payment for hospitals that furnish care to low-income and uninsured patients has also been raised.
A reimbursement bonus has been added to doctors serving in physician scarcity counties and the adjustment for costs for serving in rural areas has been improved. The agreement augments payments to home health agencies by 5 percent for services furnished in rural areas.
Our choice was not whether to fund Medicare; we committed these funds years ago when we first made a promise to our seniors. Our nation has a moral responsibility to fulfill our Medicare promise.
This bill realizes our mandate to meet the needs of seniors and disabled people while providing the highest quality service for the best price.
Twenty-first century medicine must not be confined to a twentieth-century bureaucracy. This legislation updates Medicare to allow new biotechnology and drug research to supplant outdated treatments.
New prescription drugs commonly substitute for more expensive treatments like surgery and hospitalization. Treating stroke patients with new clot-busting drugs has saved $4,400 per patient by cutting hospitalization and rehabilitation costs.
While new drugs for congestive heart failure increased pharmacy costs 60 percent, they cut hospital costs 78 percent, saving $9,000 per patient. The same drugs also cut mortality rates from 25 percent to 10 percent.
This Medicare reform lowers prescription drug prices by providing seniors with group buying power and accelerating the movement of cheaper generic drugs to the market. Increasing the efficient delivery and accessibility of modern prescription drugs expands the medication market, driving down retail costs of the medicine, making health care move affordable to seniors, increasing the return for drug producers and thus spurring additional medical research which replaces more costly and less effective treatments and surgeries of the past.
America has the best quality health care system in the world. By expanding the medical market, offering options, and providing fair benefits at affordable prices, our system will be even more successful and our seniors will get the medication they need.