Americans United Mounts Legislative Campaign to Extend Part D Enrollment Deadline
Congressional targets in18 states will be called on to support legislation to extend May 15th deadline until the end of the year to allow Congress to fix costly, confusing and corrupt Part D plan
Washington D.C. - Today, Americans United, in a meeting with key Congressional aides and more than a dozen leading national groups, launched an aggressive campaign calling on members of Congress to extend the May 15th enrollment deadline for Medicare Part D so the fatally flawed program can be fixed. Over the next month, Americans United will mobilize grassroots action in eighteen different states targeting individual members of the House and Senate in an effort to force Congressional action to extend the deadline. President Bush has said he will not extend the deadline on his own and his Administration maintains that they do not have the authority to do so. Americans United will employ the same tools and tactics it used to defeat the disastrous Bush-Social Security privatization proposal last year, including rallies, town halls, and letter and phone campaigns in Congressional members' home states and districts to pass legislation to extend the deadline.
Americans United also released a list of members of the U.S. House and Senate who will be called to support legislation currently pending in both chambers: S.1841 introduced by Sen. Bill Nelson (D-FL) that would extend the May 15th enrollment deadline and H.Res.585, a discharge petition introduced by Reps. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) and Pete Stark (D-CA) that would force a vote in the House of Representatives on extending the May 15th deadline. The list released at the meeting can be found below.
"Medicare Part D is so badly flawed that the enrollment deadline of May 15 must be extended to give Congress time to fix Part D so that our seniors can receive a drug benefit that is simple, affordable, and guaranteed," said Brad Woodhouse, spokesman for Americans United. "The deadline also must be extended to give people more time to sign up without penalty, because it would be immoral to penalize seniors and the disabled for their failure to sign up for a plan that should have never been this difficult, costly and confusing in the first place."
If the deadline is not extended, seniors who sign up during the next open enrollment period in November, and who begin receiving coverage in January, will have accrued a minimum of a 7 percent penalty on their monthly premiums which they will have to pay every month for the rest of their lives. (There is a minimum one percent penalty per month on an individual's future premiums for each month they fail to enroll after May 15th. Since the earliest an individual can be enrolled and receiving benefits from a plan under Part D after the May 15th deadline is January 1, 2007 - seven months - a minimum 7 percent penalty will apply.)
Americans United will also continue to call on Congress and President Bush to fix Part D by:
- Requiring Medicare to use its free market muscle to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices.
- Closing the "donut hole" gap in coverage between $2,250 and $5, 100.
- Allowing seniors the choice of obtaining their prescription drug plan directly from Medicare instead of a private insurance company.
- Prohibiting insurance companies from taking medications off their list of approved drugs during any period when someone is not allowed to move to another plan
The Bush Administration claims that roughly 29 million Americans of the 42 million who are eligible have enrolled. What officials don't mention is that almost three-quarters of those enrolled - some 21 million Americans - were dumped into Part D automatically. Only about half of those eligible for Part D who can voluntarily enroll have done so.
The reasons are clear: cost and confusion. A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll found that more than one in every three Americans who have enrolled reported that they have realized no savings - and when many begin to fall into the infamous "doughnut hole," that figure is sure to rise.
"Millions of Americans have been deterred from enrolling because of the maze of confusion that has been a staple of the prescription drug plan," said Woodhouse. "With more than 1,000 plans nationally, each with different premiums, co-pays and formularies - all of which are subject to change - it is little wonder that so many have yet signed up."
"Bottom line: the May 15th deadline must be extended so that our seniors and disabled are not penalized for signing up for a costly, confusing and corrupt program that leaves many worse off than they were before," added Woodhouse."
The following is a list of legislative targets for Americans United ‘Extend the Deadline' Events. The target list is comprised of House Members who have not yet signed the Schakowsky /Stark discharge petition from states where Americans United has campaigns, and Senators in AU states who voted against the Nelson bill last month when it was offered as an amendment to the Senate budget resolution. :
Arizona:
Sen. Jon Kyl (R-AZ)
Connecticut:
Rep. Nancy L. Johnson (R-CT)
Rep. Christopher Shays (R-CT)
Rep. Rob Simmons (R-CT)
Florida:
Rep. F. Allen Boyd, Jr. (D-FL 2nd)
Rep. Kendrick B. Meek (D-FL)
Rep. Katherine Harris (R-FL)
Rep. Clay Shaw (R-FL)
Rep. Michael Bilirakis (R - FL)
Rep. Ginny Brown-Waite (R-05)
Iowa:
Rep. Jim Nussle (R-IA 1st)
Rep. Jim Leach (R - IA)
Sen. Charles Grassley (R-IA)
Illinois:
Rep. Lane Evans (D-IL-17th)
Rep. Timothy V. Johnson (R - IL)
Rep. Mark Steven Kirk (R - IL)
Maryland:
Rep. Wayne Gilchrest (R - MD)
Minnesota:
Rep. Collin Peterson (D - MN)
Martin Sabo (D-MN)
Rep. Mark Kennedy (R-MN)
Rep. Jim Ramstad (R - MN)
Rep. Gil Gutknecht (R - MN)
Rep. John Kline (R - MN)
Missouri:
Sen. Jim Talent (R-MO)
Rep. Jo Ann Emerson (R - MO)
New Hampshire:
Rep. Jeb Bradley (R - NH)
Rep. Charles Bass (R - NH)
New Jersey:
Rep. Michael Ferguson (R - NJ)
Rep. Frank A. LoBiondo (R-NJ)
New Mexico:
Rep. Heather Wilson (R - NM)
New York:
Rep. John E. Sweeney (R - NY)
Rep. Brian M. Higgins (D-NY)
Rep. John M. McHugh (R - NY)
Pennsylvania:
Sen. Rick Santorum (R-PA)
Rep. Jim Gerlach (R - PA)
Rep. Mike Fitzpatrick (R - PA)
Rep. Paul Kanjorski (R-PA)
Representative John Murtha (D - PA)
Tennessee:
Sen. Bill Frist (R-TN)
Rep. Harold Ford (D - TN)
Rep. John S. Tanner (D - TN)
Washington:
Rep. David Reichert (R-WA)
Rep. Jan Inslee (D - WA)
Rep. Adam Smith (D - WA)
West Virginia:
Rep. Shelley Moore Capito (R-WV)
Wisconsin:
Rep. Mark Green (R - WI)
Montana:
Sen. Conrad Burns (R-MT)
Representative Dennis Rehberg (R - MT)
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