TEXAS, USA — Members of Congress, led by U.S. Rep. Lloyd Doggett (D-Texas), introduced legislation Tuesday aimed at expanding the care Medicare provides.
Doggett introduced the Medicare Dental, Vision and Hearing Benefit Act, updating the Medicare benefits package to ensure that all beneficiaries have access to crucial items and services that are important to their overall health.
The bill makes the following changes to federal law, according to Doggett's office:
- Repeals the statutory exclusion that currently prohibits Medicare from covering most dental, vision and hearing care.
- Expands Medicare benefits to include items and services such as dentures, preventative and emergency dental care; refractive eye exams and eyeglasses; and hearing aids and exams.
- Provides for appropriate payment to health providers through Medicare Part B.
“This bill offers more care from Medicare responding to basic dental, hearing, and vision impairments for seniors and individuals with disabilities. It fulfills the original purpose of Medicare – to assure dignity – helping those who have difficulty seeing, hearing or eating,” said Congressman Doggett. “This legislation provides Medicare beneficiaries swift access to necessary preventative care in 2022 and additional services thereafter. It treats dental, vision, and hearing care the same as existing health care under Medicare, with no cost-sharing for preventative care and no more than the standard 20% copay for all other services. The alternative of expanding Medicare coverage with steep copays would offer false hope to those who cannot afford care today. The best way of securing meaningful advancement of better Medicare is this fall, through Reconciliation.”
According to findings in a 2018 Commonwealth Fund Report, while individuals 70 and older account for nearly 80% of the 2.8 million Americans with low vision, 43% of Medicare beneficiaries who had trouble seeing did not have an eye exam in the past year. The report also noted that among all Medicare beneficiaries, 75% who needed a hearing aid did not have one, which can range in cost from $1,000 to $6,000. Also, 70% of seniors who had trouble eating because of their teeth have not gone to the dentist in the past year, according to the study.
Researchers recommended a basic benefit package administered by Medicare for $25 per month, which they calculated would cover preventive care visits at a total cost of $1.924 billion per year and cover 6.4 million Medicare beneficiaries. Including the low-income subsidies would cost Medicare an additional $1.052 billion per year and insure an estimated additional 2.4 million beneficiaries, the report concluded.
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