The Medicare prescription-drug benefit would be improved substantially. This year, seniors who enter the Part D coverage gap, known as the "doughnut hole," each would get $250 to help pay for their medications.
Beyond that, drug-company discounts on brand-name drugs and federal subsidies and discounts for all drugs would reduce the gap gradually, eliminating it by 2020. That means that seniors, who now pay 100 percent of their drug costs while they're in the doughnut hole, would pay 25 percent.
Further, as under current law, once seniors spend a certain amount on medications, they'd get "catastrophic" coverage and pay only 5 percent of the cost of their medications.
Government payments to Medicare Advantage, the private-plan part of Medicare, would be cut sharply starting next year. If you're one of the 10 million enrollees, you could lose extra benefits that many of the plans offer, such as free eyeglasses, hearing aids and gym memberships. To cushion the blow to beneficiaries, the cuts to health plans in high-cost areas of the country such as New York City and South Florida — where seniors have enjoyed the richest benefits — would be phased in over as many as seven years.
Beginning this year, the bill would make all Medicare preventive services, such as screenings for colon, prostate and breast cancer, free to beneficiaries.
Now if it only works
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