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Over 120 Patient
Advocacy Groups support legislation to
eliminate Two-Year Medicare Waiting Period
WASHINGTON, DC – The Coalition to End the
Two-Year Wait for Medicare, over 120
organizations who work to ensure access to
health care for people with disabilities,
enthusiastically supports the introduction
of Ending the Medicare Disability Waiting
Period Act of 2009, S.700 and H.R.1708,
which would eliminate the unjustifiable
two-year delay in coverage for people with
severe disabilities who are waiting to
become eligible for Medicare coverage.
“Nearly 40 percent of people with
disabilities are without health insurance
coverage at some point during their wait for
Medicare; 24 percent have no health
insurance during this entire period.
"Many
cannot afford to pay COBRA premiums to
maintain coverage from their former
employer, and private coverage on the
individual market is unavailable or too
expensive for this high-cost population,”
the Coalition wrote to Senator Jeff Bingaman
(D-NM) and Representative Gene Green (D-TX).
“The waiting period forces people with
severe disabilities to endure two years
during which treatment and care of their
condition are put at risk.
"As
a result, people may forego care they cannot
afford, complicating their condition and
potentially raising the cost of care once
Medicare does step in,” said Kimberly
Cantor, Manager of Federal Government
Relations from the National Multiple
Sclerosis Society.
“This means that costs to Medicare will
likely be higher once the end of the waiting
period is reached.”
“Our efforts to expand coverage to the
uninsured must include people with
disabilities and their families who struggle
to pay medical bills and afford food and
housing as they wait for Medicare coverage
to begin,” said Diane Dorman, Vice President
for Public Policy for the National
Organization of
Rare Diseases.
“This arbitrary and cruel delay in health
coverage for the most vulnerable among us
must end.”
Efforts by Congress and the new
administration to address America’s health
care crisis provide a unique opportunity to
end the two-year waiting period.
As a senator, President Barack Obama was a
cosponsor of the Ending the Medicare
Disability Waiting Period Act of 2007 when
it was introduced into the 110th
Congress.
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