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Volume 12 Number 94 News: Medicare Advocates for Medicare beneficiaries said May 15 at a House Energy and Commerce Health Subcommittee hearing that Congress should eliminate the asset test for programs that assist low-income beneficiaries with Part B and Part D costs. AARP was among organizations calling for legislation that would remove requirements that applicants for the Part D low-income subsidy and for Medicare Saving Programs (MSPs) have assets below certain thresholds. The groups also said eligibility for the assistance programs should be streamlined so that agencies screening for eligibility in one program could assess eligibility for other programs. AARP board member N. Joyce Payne said the Part D low-income subsidy (LIS) asset thresholds of $11,710 for individuals and $23,410 for couples were "hardly enough to get people through retirement," and discouraged modest savings. Furthermore, Payne said, the LIS application process was so burdensome as to create a barrier to those who met the "unreasonable limits." "This asset test and the paperwork barrier it creates is a key reason why between 3 [million] and 5 million people who should qualify for the LIS are not getting it," she said in testimony to the panel. Lack of Coordination Payne also criticized the lack of coordination between the LIS program and MSPs, despite the fact that the same populations are served by the programs. She noted that, although beneficiaries enrolled in MSPs are automatically eligible for and enrolled in the LIS program, beneficiaries screened for the LIS program are not routinely screened for MSP eligibility. "This is a serious missed opportunity, as MSP eligibility criteria in several states is less restrictive than LIS criteria, and some states have effectively eliminated the [MSP] asset test altogether," Payne said. The result, she said, is that many beneficiaries who would be eligible for MSP assistance under their states' rules incorrectly were found to be ineligible because they are screened using LIS criteria. Medicare Rights Center Deputy Director Monica Sanchez similarly said that "breakdowns in data exchanges" among state and federal agencies that coordinate the Medicare assistance program result in failures to adequately identify enroll beneficiaries in the LIS program and MSPs. Annual Redeterminations Sanchez also said MRC supports removing the asset test requirements. She said that Congress should consider doing away with annual redetermination requirements for MSPs, saying the process was too arduous for beneficiaries and state agencies and had little value. "Very few low-income older adults with little in the way of financial assets ever experience a change in circumstance," Sanchez said. "They are poor and they will remain poor for the remainder of their days. Requiring annual redeterminations for MSPs just creates additional bureaucratic hassles for these individuals and additional administrative burdens on the states." Sanchez suggested that if MSP redeterminations were not eliminated they should be conducted in the same way LIS redeterminations, in which the Social Security Administration asks enrollees whether their financial status has changed and if not, beneficiaries are not required to re-enroll. More information is available.
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