Health Care: The Check's Not in the Mail

The Check's Not in the Mail

The idea was to protect the elderly poor from the cost of health insurance by having the government pay the $29.90 monthly Medicare premium for people over 65 whose annual income is less than $6,620. But, according to the 1990 agreement between Congress and the Social Security Administration, in order to obtain the benefit, people had to apply for it. Families USA, an advocacy group for senior citizens, charges that 2.2 million people eligible for the program never made applications because the government didn't tell them about it. The monthly premiums continued to be deducted from their Social Security checks, saving...

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