Between six and nine million people eligible for the new Medicare prescription drug plan missed the May 15 deadline to sign up last week. Locally, senior citizen advocates say the plan’s complicated rules caused mass confusion for those who wanted to enroll.
Those who didn’t sign up by May 15 will pay a penalty calculated at the rate of 1 percent per month they wait to join. Since the next enrollment period isn’t until November, that means that any nonsubsidized senior who missed this deadline will pay at least 7 percent higher premiums—on average, $2.50 per month. (Those who qualify for low-income subsidies are exempt from the penalty.)
“It was chaotic in the last seven to 10 days [prior to the deadline],” says Gordon Walker, CEO of the Jefferson Area Board of Aging (JABA). “People have been extremely anxious and worried and frustrated. They can’t understand why this penalty is being imposed on them.”
As the backlash mounts, lawmakers who supported President Bush’s Medicare reform are responding. Legislators in both houses of Congress are advancing bills that waive the penalty, at least temporarily. Virgil Goode, Charlottesville’s congressman who voted for the Medicare drug plan, says he supports a bill that would extend the deadline to January 1, 2007.
The prescription drug plan began enrolling last November. But the deadline found millions struggling to discern which—if any—of the 42 possible plans was right for them. Because of the penalty, many who didn’t need the coverage have joined, just in case they might need it in the future.
Counseling about the appropriate plan took an average of 1.5 hours per person at JABA, according to Walker, whose organization provided consultation for roughly 3,500. “Over the past week, it was so nuts that we had to turn people away because we didn’t have enough staff and volunteers to provide the consultations that people needed,” says Walker. In many such cases, JABA could only provide printed guidelines and encourage people to use the Internet.—Will Goldsmith