Strengthening Medicare

Strengthening Medicare

Nearly 50 million seniors and Americans with disabilities depend on Medicare every day. The health care law makes Medicare stronger and extends the life of the Medicare Trust Fund by eight years.

Reducing prescription drug costs in Medicare: Over 6 million seniors and people with disabilities have saved more than $5.7 billion on prescription drugs thanks to the Affordable Care Act. These savings include a one-time $250 rebate check to seniors who fell into the prescription drug coverage gap known as the “donut hole” in 2010, and a 50% discount on brand-name drugs.  Seniors in the “donut hole” have saved an average of $706.

Medicare preventive benefits: The Affordable Care Act makes many key preventive services available with no co-pay or deductible to help ensure that seniors don’t have to skip a potentially life-saving cancer screening because they can’t afford it. In 2012 alone, an estimated 34.1 million seniors received one or more free preventive services, including the new Annual Wellness Visit.

Saving money for seniors: The average person with Medicare will save approximately $5,000 from 2010 to 2022, while those with high prescription drug costs will save much more – as much as $18,000 over the same period.  This is especially good news for people with chronic conditions such as diabetes and high blood pressure who must take their medication every day for many years.

Fighting fraud and saving taxpayer dollars: The health care law helps stop fraud with  tougher screening procedures, stronger penalties, and new technology. In 2012, the government’s health care fraud prevention and enforcement efforts recovered a record $4.2 billion in taxpayer dollars from fraudsters. And for every dollar spent on health care-related fraud and abuse investigations in the last three years we recovered $7.90. Over the last four years, the administration’s enforcement efforts have recovered $14.9 billion. And in total since 1997, the Health Care Fraud and Abuse Control Program has returned more than $23 billion to the Medicare Trust Fund.  Learn more about these efforts at StopMedicareFraud.gov.

http://www.healthcare.gov/law/information-for-you/benefits.html

A note to our visitors

This website has updated its privacy policy in compliance with changes to European Union data protection law, for all members globally. We’ve also updated our Privacy Policy to give you more information about your rights and responsibilities with respect to your privacy and personal information. Please read this to review the updates about which cookies we use and what information we collect on our site. By continuing to use this site, you are agreeing to our updated privacy policy.

Scroll to Top