It seems the nation’s broken health care system has finally reached the top of the domestic agenda and our lawmakers need to tackle the problem. Groups like AARP believe Congress should take these six steps to guarantee that all Americans have quality health care plans they can afford:
Guarantee affordable coverage for Americans ages 50-64, close the Medicare Part D “doughnut hole,” create access to generic versions of costly biologic drugs, prevent costly hospital re-admissions by creating a Medicare follow-up care benefit to help people transition home after a hospital stay, increase federal funding and eligibility for home and community-based services through Medicaid, and improve programs that help low-income Americans in Medicare afford the health care and prescription drugs they need.
Preventable re-admissions alone cost Medicare billions. The need for fair, bipartisan measures to repair the system has never been so urgent. Jane Magnus
Magnus is a retired teacher living with her daughter in Lawrenceville. Her letter was forwarded by AARP NJ, 101 Rockingham Row, Plainsboro (www.aarp.org).
