Printable Version
Connecticut Retiree Leader to Call for Medicare Reforms at White House Regional Summit
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
Tuesday, March 17, 2009
For Immediate
Release
Connecticut Retiree
Leader to Call for Medicare Reforms at White
House Regional Summit
Improving Medicare Must be Key
Component of Health Care Reform, Lynch
Says
Burlington VT –
Saying that “improving Medicare must be
at the center of our nation’s health care
reform,” retiree activist Kevin Lynch will
today participate in the White House Regional
Forum on Health Care in Burlington,
VT.
Lynch, of West Hartford CT, serves
as president of the Connecticut Alliance for
Retired Americans and also serves as a board
member for the national Alliance for Retired
Americans, a 3.5 million-member grassroots
advocacy organization.
“Medicare is
going broke, and a big reason why is the
badly-flawed Medicare Part D prescription drug
law. This simply has to be reformed,”
Lynch said.
According to Lynch, any
national health care reform must include a
government-run prescription plan that can
negotiate volume discounts from drug
manufacturers. The 2003 Medicare
Modernization Act privatized Medicare’s drug
plans and prohibited price negotiations.
In contrast, Lynch noted, the Veterans’
Administration is able to obtain bulk price
discounts and its prescriptions cost 30 percent
less.
Lynch said he was encouraged by
President Obama’s recent budget proposal that
eliminates $176 billion in wasteful taxpayer
subsidies to private insurance companies
operating Medicare Advantage plans.
“President Obama wants to make it clear that
Medicare’s top priority should be the health of
our nation’s seniors, not its big drug and
insurance companies. I hope Congress
supports this major step toward reforming
Medicare,” Lynch commented.
Two concerns
that Lynch says he hopes to mention at the
summit are proposals to means-test Medicare
benefits, which he says would hurt seniors and
would not fix structural flaws in the program,
and also calls to tax employer-provided health
benefits, which according to Lynch would prompt
many employers to abandon their health plans
for retirees and workers.
Today’s event,
co-hosted by Vermont Governor Jim Douglas and
Massachusetts Governor Deval Patrick, is an
outgrowth of the March 5 health care summit
convened by President Obama at the White
House. Edward Coyle, the Executive
Director of the national Alliance for Retired
Americans, was invited to participate in that
event.
Lynch is available for media
interviews by contacting the national Alliance
office at 202/637-5178.
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Contact: Marcie Kohenak, (202)
637-5178 or mkohenak@gmail.com