Clinton Vows to Spread the Word About Cut-Rate Medicare Premiums for Poor

President Clinton, asserting “a duty we owe our parents and our fellow citizens,” launched a campaign Monday to make millions of low-income seniors aware of a special program to help them pay their part of Medicare premiums.

With the monthly Medicare premium for doctors’ office visits now at $43.80 and scheduled to rise to $105.70 by 2008, Congress enacted legislation to help the elderly poor pay part of the cost. But nearly 4 million eligible senior citizens and individuals with disabilities have failed to take advantage of the subsidy, probably because they don’t know about it, according to a report from Families USA, a health consumer watchdog organization.

“Over 3 million of the hardest-pressed Medicare beneficiaries still do not receive the help to which they are due,” Clinton said in a statement in the White House Rose Garden.

Nationwide, nearly half of the more than 8 million eligible individuals near or below the poverty line have failed to sign up for the assistance, which Congress authorized in a series of measures in 1988, 1990 and in last year’s Balanced Budget Act. The poverty line is $8,292 in annual income for those living alone, and $11,100 for couples.

In California, participation in the program is higher than the national average. Of the 826,000 people eligible to participate, fewer than 100,000 are not enrolled.

Clinton ordered a series of steps, including mailings to households, simpler application processes and information made available via the Internet.

He directed that all 38 million Medicare beneficiaries be sent information about the program this fall, and that all new Medicare beneficiaries be told of it in their enrollment packets. The more than 36 million Social Security recipients will find similar information in their notices of the annual cost-of-living adjustment.

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The initiative will be a joint effort of the Department of Health and Human Services and the Social Security Administration.

“It’s a matter of constant work; going to the Social Security field offices, going to the other enrollment centers where people go,” said Christopher Jennings, deputy assistant to the president for health policy, in briefing reporters. “We want to go to the providers, we want to go to the senior centers, the adult day centers, nursing homes and other places where we can target the populations who are eligible.”

In some cases, such assistance can mean the difference between “whether elderly people actually go into poverty or not because of the out-of-pocket costs that they otherwise would not have to have if they took advantage of this benefit,” Jennings said.

Medicare, which is government health insurance for people age 65 and older and for the disabled, charges a monthly premium for coverage of doctors’ visits and other outpatient care. It is deducted automatically from Social Security retirement and disability checks.

Those seeking the special assistance must apply at local public assistance offices, not at the Social Security office where they enroll in Medicare. Many elderly do not know this, or avoid the process because they regard it as too cumbersome or bureaucratic, the Families USA report said.

Ron Pollack, the group’s executive director, said: “If the Social Security Administration is responsible for cutting the checks of these needy seniors each month, it should also be responsible for getting them the benefits Congress and the president established and that they desperately need.”

The report said the government was withholding about $2 billion in annual premiums from these Medicare beneficiaries, most of them widows living alone.

“Since Medicare premiums will more than double over the next decade, the withholding of these benefits will result in lower and lower Social Security checks,” Pollack said. “Unless the problems with enrollment in the Medicare buy-in programs are resolved, the federal government will take an even larger bite out of the meager Social Security checks of widows and widowers in years to come.”

Families USA suggested that Medicare beneficiaries who believe they may be eligible for benefits call the Medicare hotline at (800) 638-6833 for the number of the Health Insurance Counseling and Assistance Program nearest them, or send a self-addressed, stamped, letter-size envelope to: Families USA/Shortchanged, 1334 G St. N.W., 3rd Floor, Washington, D.C. 20005, for a list of counseling programs in their state.