Oconto County Commission on Aging’s Blog

On Tuesday, July 15, President Bush vetoed H.R. 6331, the Medicare Improvements for Patients and Providers Act. Immediately after the veto was issued, the House voted 383-41 and the Senate voted 70-26 to override the veto. 

NCOA strongly supported the bill and played a lead role in including important improvements in assistance for vulnerable, low-income beneficiaries.  These include provisions to:

• Raise asset eligibility levels for the Medicare Savings Programs (MSPs), which have never been adjusted to reflect inflation;
• Increase community resources to find and enroll low-income beneficiaries; 
• Repeal the Medicare prescription drug late enrollment premium penalty for low-income beneficiaries;
• Reduce barriers to MSP enrollment by better engaging the Social Security Administration and translating the model application form into other languages;
• Extend the Qualifying Individual (QI) program to December 31, 2009; and
• Eliminate burdensome questions on life insurance and in-kind support and maintenance from the Medicare prescription drug Low Income Subsidy application form.  

Other important beneficiary provisions NCOA strongly supported include improving access to Medicare preventive care and mental health services.

NCOA is grateful to all our grassroots advocates across the country who called and emailed their Senators and Representatives in support of H.R. 6331. Your participation helped to generate the strong, bipartisan support needed to pass the bill–thank you!  

See NCOA’s summary of the beneficiary improvements (pdf file) in H.R. 6331.