By Eric Berman
11/5/2009
The AARP is endorsing the House version of health care reform.
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The seniors' organization says the House bill meets its goals for a health bill: making insurance affordable even for the poorest Americans, banning limits on insuring pre-existing conditions, and closing the so-called "doughnut hole" in Medicare drug coverage:
State director June Lyle says the group takes no position on the government-run insurance option included in the House bill but not the Senate's. She says AARP is judging the bills on the results, not the means.
The AARP has withheld support for the Senate bill. Lyle says its subsidies for low-income Americans are too low, and premiums are unacceptably high for senior citizens.
Lyle says the group can support charging seniors double the premiums paid by 50-year-olds, the AARP's youngest members. But the differential in the Senate bill is triple premiums, and Lyle says some senators have proposed making it quadruple.
The "doughnut hole" refers to a $3,400 deductible in the Medicare drug benefit which kicks in after a patient spends $2,700 on prescriptions in a year. Seniors' groups have criticized the gap since the drug benefit was created three years ago, and Lyle says a health care bill that doesn't plug the gap will be unacceptable to the AARP.
The House bill shrinks the doughnut hole by $500 immediately, and would eliminate it entirely in 10 years.
The Senate bill does not address the gap.
AARP has nearly 40 million members. Lyle predicts thousands of Hoosier members will take their cue from the endorsement and lobby Indiana's members of Congress to pass the bill.
President Obama told reporters at the White House he's "extraordinarily pleased and grateful" at the endorsement.
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