Commercials, Web Site Aim to Help Seniors Navigate Medicare

Medicare commercials hit the national television airwaves Friday, with slapstick actor Leslie Nielsen bumbling his way through a hospital room encouraging fellow seniors to contact the federal agency for help with insurance.

The government, which is spending $30 million on the promotion, says the three months of television commercials, radio announcements and newspaper ads will help millions of the elderly and disabled to navigate Medicare.

“Our annual research of seniors and disabled people shows that they love Medicare, they just don’t understand it,” said Tom Scully, chief of the Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services, a division of the Health and Human Services Department.

But consumer advocates say the hotlines and Web sites pitched by the multimillion-dollar campaign lack critical information seniors need to choose the best health plans.

“People need to understand three fundamental things: what doctors you can see, what you have to pay out of pocket and what care you can get,” said Diane Archer, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a New York-based nonprofit group that also provides help to seniors to navigate Medicare.

The federal 24-hour hotline and Web site, touted in the ads, omit information that can help participants choose among Medicare plans, such as participating HMOs or approved supplemental policies--often known as Medigap, she said.

“It doesn’t alert people to the fact that some plans provide better care than others,” Archer said.

Judith Siegel, an 85-year-old Brooklyn retiree, felt she got the runaround when she tried dialing the hotline to find out whether her HMO was going to stay in Medicare. The Medicare Rights Center helped her, she said.

“I got so many numbers from them, I couldn’t keep up,” she said of the federal hotline. “I really was bewildered.”

A key group for senior citizens, however, endorsed the agency’s bank of information and the campaign to promote it.

“Beneficiaries can now find answers to their questions 24 hours a day, seven days a week,” said Bill Novelli, executive director of AARP, the top lobby group for older Americans.

The media campaign places ads in major newspapers, in selected radio markets and on television during shows popular with older audiences, such as “The Price is Right” and “Touched by an Angel.”

Spanish-language ads feature a daughter helping her elderly mother.

The agency is also mailing new handbooks to seniors during the fall open enrollment, a time when many seniors choose which Medicare options they prefer.

Scully said the expense--roughly what a presidential candidate would spend in that same time period and far less than the Army’s recruiting ads--are well worth the money. And, he added, the extra funds from this year’s budget are coming from belt-tightening on the administrative end of the $243-billion federal program.

Officials expect 95% of seniors will see one of the half a dozen ads at least 30 times.

In addition to the ads, the Medicare agency also hired 1,000 telephone operators to field questions. Officials said the operators can answer questions about what treatments Medicare will cover, what types of supplemental insurance policies participants can use to help pay their medical bills or how to find a nursing home.

Bush officials want to overhaul the program, which includes encouraging seniors to sign up for HMOs and other private health plans that participate in Medicare and promoting private discount cards to lower seniors’ medicine costs.