by Ron Pollack, Executive Director, Families USA Copyright 1996
Medicare has protected the lives and health of more than 30 million older Americans for more than 30 years. For many of our parents, Medicare has been their only protection from the soaring costs of health care, and their only hope of affording the care they need.
But, even with Medicare's help, older Americans are spending more and more of their income to buy overpriced prescription drugs and foot the bill for long term care.
The High Price of Medicines
Look at what's happening to two older Americans: Mary Johnston and Celia Mahoney.
Mary Johnston's husband died eight years ago. Today, at 73, she's struggling to get along on $726 a month from Social Security. Mrs. Johnston began working six decades ago, when she was twelve years old. After a lifetime of hard work, Mrs. Johnston still isn't on Easy Street. It would be tough enough making ends meet if all she had to worry about were rent and groceries. It's all her medications that makes it near impossible to get by on $726 a month.
Mrs. Johnston doesn't complain about her health, but she lives with diabetes, a heart condition, and arthritis, so her medicines are expensive. Each month she has to come up with $128 for prescription drugs she needs to survive. That's a big chunk of her income. Sometimes she skips meals. Sometimes she skips pills. So, what happens? Well, one time, she wound up in the hospital for skipping pills.
Medicare helps with doctor and hospital visits, but it doesn't help Mrs. Johnston with the high cost of the medication she needs in order to stay alive.
The Crushing Burden of Long Term Care
If Medicare fails Mary Johnston on the cost of drugs, it fails Celia Mahoney on the cost of long term care. She's been in a nursing home for seven years -- at the staggering cost of $36,000 a year. That's twice what she gets in pension and Social Security , so she's going through her savings. Even though she saved and saved throughout a life of hard work, there's not much left.
Some days, she stares out the window, weeping that everything she worked for is disappearing: her savings and her dignity. Rather than being able to help her children, she may soon have to turn to her children for help.
Her daughter, Dorothy, has two children in college. Dorothy worries about her mom, but she's also worrying about what the cost of long term care is going to do to the family budget, already straining to cover tuition for two kids in college.
It's Time to Strengthen Medicare
Unfortunately, the stories of Mary Johnston and Celia Mahoney are not even unusual these days. For all the good that Medicare has done for older Americans, more needs to be done. It's time for America to take the next step.
Medicare should be strengthened, and it should cover prescription drugs and long term care. That's a priority for American families, and it should come ahead of new tax loopholes for the wealthy.
America has Social Security and Medicare only because our parents created them for their parents. It's our turn to do what needs to be done for our parents, our children and ourselves.
