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OFA-PA: York woman says she’s seeing the benefits of health care reform

LAUREN WHETZEL The York Dispatch

For the past eight years, Carol Buck fell into the Medicare Part D doughnut hole.

Seniors fall in this gap if their prescription drugs cost too much to be paid for through basic Medicare coverage, but aren’t expensive enough to qualify for catastrophic coverage.

That means the 64-year-old York senior paid hundreds of dollars out-of-pocket each month for prescription drugs that were costly and didn’t have generic alternatives, Buck said Wednesday morning during a conference call held by Organizing for America.

The organization is a project of the Democratic National Committee in

support of the Affordable Care Act.

The conference call was held in the wake of the vote Wednesday to repeal the health care reform crafted by the Obama administration.

Frightening repeal: The Republican effort to repeal the health care reform bill is frightening, said Buck, who suffers from heart and kidney diseases and a spinal disease that left her handicapped.

Shelling out extra costs for prescriptions puts a strain on her budget, she said.

Ultimately, to save money, Buck made the decision to stop physical therapy and medical massage therapy.

But Buck said she’s already begun reaping the benefits of President Barack Obama’s health care reform bill, especially with the start of the new year, when new provisions of the Affordable Care Act went into effect.

Although the so-called doughnut hole will take 10 years to fill completely, Buck and others in her situation received a $250 rebate check last year and will receive a 50 percent discount on prescription drugs beginning this year.

Free preventive care checkups provided under the reform will also help keep her healthy without having to spend outrageous amounts of money, she said.

Against repeal: Republican efforts to repeal the reform will expand the national deficit by trillions of dollars, force seniors to pay more out of pocket for prescription drugs, take away insurance for young adults and make it easier for insurance companies to deny coverage because of pre-existing conditions, said chairman Jim Burn of the Pennsylvania Democratic Party.

The bottom line is, unfortunately, America is seeing raw partisan politics, and “that’s the last thing (the nation) needs right now,” said Burn.

U.S. Rep. Todd Platts said he and the other House Republicans don’t intend to ditch every provision of the Obama administration’s health care reforms.

And if the repeal is successful, he said, they would eventually reintroduce elements such as those allowing young adults to stay on their parents’ health plan until the age of 26 and prohibiting insurance plans from dropping people because of pre-existing conditions.

The difference, Platts said, is the provisions would be passed by individual acts that lawmakers would have ample time to read rather than a single, 3,000-page bill.

— Reach Lauren Whetzel at 505-5432 or lwhetzel@yorkdispatch.com.

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