From xxxxxx <[email protected]>
Subject Activists Urge Congress to Expand Medicare
Date July 31, 2021 4:55 AM
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["As a doctor I can tell you: Your eyes, your ears, and your teeth
are connected to your body. I did not have to go to medical school to
tell yall this, but apparently I do have to tell Congress this." ]
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ACTIVISTS URGE CONGRESS TO EXPAND MEDICARE  
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Jake Johnson
July 30, 2021
Common Dreams
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_ "As a doctor I can tell you: Your eyes, your ears, and your teeth
are connected to your body. I did not have to go to medical school to
tell y'all this, but apparently I do have to tell Congress this." _

"Medicare for All Rally" by mollyktadams, licensed under CC BY 2.0

 

PROGRESSIVE HEALTHCARE ACTIVISTS MARKED Medicare's 56th anniversary
Friday by delivering more than 125,000 petitions urging Congress to
lower the popular program's eligibility age and expand its coverage to
include vision, hearing, and dental services—upgrades that
proponents say are long overdue to help protect seniors from soaring
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costs.

"Now, as a doctor I can tell you: Your eyes, your ears, and your teeth
are connected to your body," Dr. Sanjeev Sriram, an adviser to the
advocacy group Social Security Works, said during a rally on Capitol
Hill. "I did not have to go to medical school to tell y'all this, but
apparently I do have to tell Congress this."

"These things are not luxury items. Your teeth are not luxury items,"
Sriram continued. "We can make Medicare cover dental care when we
start making changes and stop making excuses. The 56th anniversary is
as good as any other occasion to expand Medicare to cover more people,
to do the work that has not been done for generations."

The groups' petition
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Democrats in Congress prioritize:

* Strengthening Medicare to include hearing, dental, and vision
benefits, as well as an out-of-pocket cap;
* Expanding Medicare by lowering the eligibility age from 65 to as
low as possible; and
* Enabling Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for
everyone.

"We can't let Congress pass up this chance to transform our healthcare
system for the better," the document reads. "Tell the House and Senate
to include a plan for strengthening Medicare in a final reconciliation
package!"

"We need Medicare for All. In fact, we needed Medicare for All
yesterday."
—Rep. Pramila Jayapal

The petition delivery came after Senate Democratic leaders agreed to
include a substantial expansion of Medicare coverage in a recently
unveiled $3.5 trillion
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reconciliation proposal. But, as it stands, the measure would not
lower
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program's eligibility age from 65 to 60, a move that would extend the
program's coverage to 23 million
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In a virtual speech to the activists gathered in Washington, D.C. on
Friday, Rep. Pramila Jayapal (D-Wash.) argued that Congress now has a
"historic opportunity" to build on Medicare, which currently covers
roughly 62 million people
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Jayapal, the chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus,
is calling
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both a lower Medicare eligibility age and the inclusion of dental,
hearing, and vision coverage in the forthcoming reconciliation
package.

"I'm also pushing to go further. Now more than ever, we need to
guarantee healthcare for everyone, as a human right," said Jayapal,
the lead House sponsor
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the Medicare for All Act of 2021. "Healthcare without co-pays, private
insurance premiums, deductibles, and other out-of-pocket costs. We
need Medicare for All. In fact, we needed Medicare for All yesterday,
when nearly 100 million people were uninsured or underinsured in the
richest nation on the planet."

Supporters of Medicare expansion, including the activists who
demonstrated on Capitol Hill Friday, are urging Congress to fund the
new benefits by allowing Medicare to directly negotiate prescription
drug prices with pharmaceutical companies—which it is
currently barred
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doing under federal law. A recent Government Accountability Office
(GAO) study
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by Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) found that people in the U.S. pay two
to four times more for prescription drugs than the residents of other
rich countries.

"It is time to end the international disgrace of Americans paying the
highest prices in the world, by far, for prescription drugs," Sanders
said in virtual remarks at Friday's rally. "The time is now, more than
50 years later, to fully realize the vision of what Medicare is
supposed to be about."

Medicare is 56 years old today. It’s past time to strengthen and
#ExpandMedicare
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by:

✔ Adding hearing, dental, and vision benefits, as well as an
out-of-pocket cap
✔ Lowering the eligibility age
✔ Empowering Medicare to negotiate lower prescription drug
prices#MM56
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pic.twitter.com/5O5c1Lw9ye [[link removed]]

— Partners for Dignity & Rights (Formerly NESRI) (@Partner4Dignity)
July 30, 2021
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While some Medicare recipients receive dental, vision, and hearing
coverage through more expensive Medicare Advantage
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Medicaid, and employer-sponsored retiree plans, millions of seniors
are left without such benefits each year.

According to a recent analysis
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the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF), around 24 million Medicare
recipients did not have dental coverage in 2019.

"Average out-of-pocket spending on dental services among Medicare
beneficiaries who had any dental service was $874 in 2018," KFF found.
"One in five Medicare beneficiaries (20%) who used dental services
spent more than $1,000 out-of-pocket on dental care.

In an op-ed
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Hill_ on Friday, Social Security Works president Nancy Altman wrote
that "it makes no sense to exclude hearing, dental, and vision
benefits from a program designed for seniors."

"Congressional Democrats are currently in the midst of crafting a
reconciliation package that can, and should, include all of these
benefit expansions," Altman added. "Strengthening and expanding
Medicare is smart politics for any Democrat that wants to win
reelection in 2022. More importantly, it's the morally right thing to
do."

Our work is licensed under Creative Commons (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0). Feel
free to republish and share widely.

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