Seniors Dissatisfied with Lack of Information on Affordable Care Act

By Care For You •

Speaking at a town hall meeting at Iona Senior Service Center in Washington, DC (July 26, 2010), James Firman, president and CEO of the National Council on Aging¹, described a recently completed national survey. The survey’s objective was to determine how much senior adults know about the recently passed health reform legislation, the Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act². Conducted by Harris Interactive³, the survey found that, sadly, most have very little, or inaccurate, information about the Act.

For example, 38% of respondents stated they were “not at all satisfied” with the accuracy and reliability of information they had received about the new law. Only 7% said they were “very satisfied.”

Mr. Firman used the town hall meeting to announce the launch of NCOA’s response to this information void: the “Straight Talk for Seniors on Health Reform” campaign, and a series of fact sheets that describe key features of the Act and changes to Medicare.

Although the Act is not targeted toward seniors specifically, seniors are a major focus as the Federal government spends hundreds of billions annually for Medicare. Per the Congressional Budget Office, in 2008, the latest year for which numbers are available, total spending for health care was about $2.2 trillion. Federal spending for Medicare that year was 22% of the total, or about $484 billion⁴.

Still, many have heard that the law is being paid for, at least in part, through cuts to Medicare. There are important caveats to this assumption. First, when Medicare Advantage, the HMO-like program, was introduced earlier in the decade, the government gave insurers additional money as an incentive to bring people into a managed care program and away from fee-for-service. In 2009, this amounted to about $1,100 more per enrollee than they pay for traditional Medicare. Starting in 2012, reductions in this MA premium will commence and continue over six years.

Given that the government will be taking away the financial incentive for MA enrollment, many plans will face a decision of whether to raise their premiums or reduce services. Note however, MA plans must continue to offer at least the same benefits that are guaranteed to everyone on Medicare. So, although there will be premium increases or cuts in certain areas, this will slow the rate of growth of Medicare spending, not the growth itself.

In fact, starting in 2011, Medicare will pay bonuses to primary care physicians, e.g., general practitioners, internists, to encourage more to accept Medicare patients.

In upcoming articles, we’ll cover other features of the new law.

¹The National Council on Aging can be found at: www.NCOA.org.
²PPACA, Public Law 111-148
³Harris Interactive can be found at: www.harrisinteractive.com.
⁴The Long-Term Budget Outlook, June 2010, P. 27, http://www.cbo.gov/ftpdocs/115xx/doc11579/06-30-LTBO.pdf.