Seniors voice concerns over insurance rates

A national drug prescription program enacted by Congress now would take three years to implement, an official said.
By HAROLD GWIN
VINDICATOR SHARON BUREAU
HERMITAGE, Pa. -- More than 150 people, mostly senior citizens, got a chance to vent their frustrations with rising Medicare supplemental insurance rates in a meeting Friday, but they left the session unsatisfied.
U.S. Rep. Phil English of Erie, R-3rd, and Tom Scully, head of the federal agency that sets reimbursement rates for those insurance programs, could promise no relief.
Most of those attending the meeting in the Womancare Center of UPMC Horizon live in Mercer County and have been hit by annual rate increases in their Security
Blue Medicare HMO insurance rates.
Standard package rates, which include some drug coverage, have jumped from $35 a month in 1999 to $134 a month this year.
Frustrations: Some in the crowd, such as Beverly Hoffman of Sandy Lake, said they get a Social Security check of just $477 a month and can ill afford to pay $134 for supplemental insurance.
Others, such as Bonnie Silvis of Sharon, said the drug coverage allocation of $150 a quarter isn't enough. She said she doesn't take her medicine as prescribed because she can't afford to get the prescriptions refilled on a timely basis.
Frank Frankovich of Hermitage asked why the federal government reimburses insurance companies at different rates from one county to the next, pointing out that Security Blue subscribers in Mercer County pay monthly premiums considerably higher than those in neighboring Lawrence County.
Security Blue has said that Lawrence subscribers pay $56 per month for standard coverage but have a $350 per quarter prescription drug allotment.
Scully, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, which sets the reimbursement rates, said each county's reimbursement rate is determined by the "average" of the health-care costs that Medicare provides in each of those counties.
In Lawrence, the reimbursement rate is $573 per person per month while in Mercer, it's only $538. Subscribers make up some of the difference in higher premium costs, he said.
Legislative action: English said that Congress did provide some help with a $6 billion allocation in late 2000 that resulted in a temporary lowering of rates but that they are on the rise again.
There is money in the federal budget to do it again, but he said he couldn't promise that legislation to use those funds will pass.
The House also passed a prescription drug plan bill for all senior citizens in 2000 but the Senate killed it, he said, noting that rising drug costs are the primary cause of rising health-care costs.
Even if such a bill became law, it would take his agency about three years to get a prescription drug plan running, Scully said.
His agency did try to enact a senior citizen drug discount card program but pharmacies and drugstore chains beat it in federal court by showing there was no statutory authority for the program.
Scully said his agency is now asking Congress for that authority.
Walter Martin of Sharon had a suggestion for resolving the issue.
"I think we should consider national health care," he said, noting that his Canadian friends are pleased with the national health program in that country.