Help Poor Elderly Pay Fees, Health Panel Urges

A bipartisan commission on Sunday said the government should help elderly poor people pay their Medicare charges, add coverage of preventive services to Medicare and order improvements in supplementary insurance.

The $2.8-billion package, recommended by the Pepper Commission, would add to a $66-billion plan the panel suggested in March, which would provide medical coverage to nearly all Americans.

The panel voted 11 to 4 for the latest three recommendations.

“People may think that because the elderly have Medicare they are adequately protected. That’s wrong,” Sen. John D. (Jay) Rockefeller IV (D-W. Va.), the commission chairman, said in announcing the panel’s action.

The panel, originally the U.S. Bipartisan Commission on Comprehensive Health Care, was established by Congress in 1988 and consists of 12 members of Congress and three White House appointees. It was later renamed in memory of Rep. Claude Pepper (D-Fla.), who fought for improved benefits for the elderly.

The first recommendation was to help the nearly impoverished elderly pay their Medicare premiums and deductibles. These are the 8.2 million elderly Americans whose incomes fall between the poverty level--$6,280 a year for an individual--and $12,560.

The 3.5 million people 65 and older living below the poverty line currently are helped--or will be when the program is phased in by 1992--by Medicaid paying Medicare premiums and deductibles.

The panel also recommended extending Medicare coverage to diagnostic screenings for early detection of breast, colon and prostate cancer.

The commission also recommended new federal standards for Medigap insurance policies intended to supplement Medicare coverage.

These standards would require insurers to use more of their premium revenue to pay benefits.