MAINE SENIOR REPORT   

January 31, 2007

An Information Service of the

Maine Council of Senior Citizens –
Alliance for Retired Americans
 (see link at top of home page at……

www.maineaflcio.org
 

PLEASE FORWARD TO YOUR SENIOR FRIENDS – The information in our Senior Reports are of importance to 42 million seniors. You can help by forwarding this material.

NOTE: If for any reason the “hot” links to the web do not work for you please copy/paste this link into your browser ion order to go to:
http://www.maineaflcio.org/seniors%20report%20index%20past%20issues.htm
where this and previous issues are posted. The links there should work for you.
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DON'T FORGET!  MONTHLY MEETINGS EVERY
 3RD TUESDAY OF THE MONTH

9:30 AM   71 State Street, Augusta (MSEA/SEIU building)
NEXT MEETING - TUESDAY FEB. 20
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SAVE THIS DATE

April 24, 2007

4:30 to 8:00 pm

Augusta Elks Club

 
Maine Council of Senior Citizen’s-

Alliance for Retired Americans Presents:

 “An Evening with Your Legislator”

Recipients of this year’s

John Marvin award

 Honorable Sharon Treat

Consumers for Affordable Health Care

 Hors D’oeuvres will be served

RSVP   please call Neena at:
622-3151 Ext 1153 or
1-800-452-8794 Ext 1153

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RESEARCH FINDS HUGE VARIATION IN DRUG COSTS
    Two people taking the same drugs but living in different states could face costs that differed by thousands of dollars – even if each had chosen the lowest-cost plan available to them. And within a state, the difference in a person’s costs for the same drugs could top $10,000 a year or more, depending on which plan he or she chose.

    Such wide variation in prices means that Medicare prescription drug plans are substantially more affordable in some states than in others, the authors conclude. In all, depending on which medicines they’re taking and which plan they’re in, people in one state might spend 10 percent of their annual income to pay for prescription drug coverage premiums and co-pays, while someone taking the same medicines in another state would spend 20 percent of their income, the study finds.

    The difference in plan costs appears to have little to do with the cost of living in different states, the researchers found. In fact, some of the states with the lowest cost-of-living-adjusted average incomes had some of the highest drug plan costs.

For complete article on University of Michigan Study>>>>>
http://www.med.umich.edu/opm/newspage/2007/medicarerx.htm

HOUSE VOTES TO REQUIRE MEDICARE TO
NEGOTIATE DRUG PRICES
    Relief may be on the way for the millions of seniors who rely on the Medicare Part D prescription drug program. Keeping the First 100 Hours momentum going today, the House passed, on a 255-170 vote, a bill that will require Medicare to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices. 
    The bill (H.R. 4), introduced by Reps. John Dingell (D-Mich.) and Charles Rangel (D-N.Y.), would repeal the Bush administration-backed provision of the 2003 prescription drug law that expressly forbids Medicare from negotiating lower prices for seniors.
    Says  Edward J. Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance for Retired Americans:
    "Today’s vote…is the triumph of the public interest over the special interest.  It is the first step toward making prescription drugs more affordable for our nation’s retirees."

    Congressman Mike Michaud voted for H.R. 4, the Medicare Prescription Drug Price Negotiation Act.  This bipartisan bill, of which Michaud is a strong supporter and cosponsor, would require the Secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) to negotiate lower drug prices on behalf of those who are enrolled in Medicare prescription drug plans.  The current Medicare prescription drug law explicitly prohibits HHS from using the strength of Medicare's 43 million beneficiaries to negotiate prescription drug price discounts.

     Congressman Tom Allen issued the following statement today as the House considered H.R. 4, legislation to require the federal government to negotiate lower prices for Medicare Part D drug beneficiaries:   “Today’s passage of H.R. 4 is an historic milestone for Maine and America’s seniors who have prescription drug coverage under Medicare Part D. The American taxpayers who fund the program are also well served by this bill. In September 1998, after I had heard from constituents who could not afford the medicines their doctors prescribe, I proposed the first legislation in Congress to negotiate lower drug prices for seniors through Medicare. Mainers understood that proposal because dickering for the best price is just common sense for Yankee traders like us. When Congress didn’t act, we created Maine Rx, the first state program to negotiate lower prices, and when the drug companies challenged our law, we fought all the way to the Supreme Court and won.

For complete article>>>> 

http://www.maineaflcio.org/maine%20senior%20report%2007-01-16.htm

Sponsored Links

WANTS TO LOWER VERIZON RATES BY $6 A MONTH
The Public Advocate filed its final arguments in a rate proceeding now before the Maine Public Utilities Commission, recommending that the Commission reduce the annual revenues of Verizon-Maine by over $42 million annually. If adopted by the PUC, the rate reduction would result in a savings of almost $6 per month per line for each Verizon residential or business local service customer. Another party to the same rate proceeding -- (AARP) – also provided evidence leading to that recommendation.

BUSH SPEECH LARGELY IGNORES SENIORS
Although President Bush spoke for nearly an hour in delivering the State of the Union address last night, the entitlement programs, which primarily serve America's 37 million senior citizens, was mentioned in only one paragraph. The term "senior citizens" was not used at all and "elderly" was used once.

Although saying government is failing to keep these key programs "permanently sound" and that Medicare and Medicaid can be fixed and Social Security saved, he offered no specific suggestions on how to achieve these goals.

In 2005, Social Security was the centerpiece of the State of the Union address. With the President Bush saying the words “Social Security” 18 times, as he pushed for private investment accounts.

He said, "When it comes to health care, government has an obligation to care for the elderly, the disabled, and poor children. And we will meet those responsibilities. For all other Americans, private health insurance is the best way to meet their needs. But many Americans cannot afford a health insurance policy."

He proposed a standard tax deduction for health insurance that will be like the standard tax deduction for dependents.

For complete article>>>>
http://www.seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Politics/2007/7-01-24-SeniorCitizensHear.htm

BUSH PUSHES HEALTH SAVINGS ACCOUNTS
    What You Need to Know: Health Savings Accounts (HSAs), advocated by President Bush in his State of the Union speech, increase the number of uninsured, do not offer savings on health care costs for average Americans, and primarily benefit the wealthy.
 

     President Bush's proposed tax deduction for health insurance appears to be shaping up as a tough sell in the Democratic Congress, according to the Associated Press.  Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA) said on Monday that the tax changes, which the President would later promote in last Tuesday night's State of the Union speech, would encourage employers to stop providing health insurance.  The President's plan would allow each family to deduct $15,000 a year from its taxable income to offset the cost of health insurance - and those who file their tax returns as individuals would be allowed $7,500 each.  To pay for this tax break, the value of employer-provided health insurance exceeding the deductions would be taxed as income.  The conservative Tax Foundation said 53 percent of Americans without health insurance pay nothing in federal income taxes and would get nothing from a break on such taxes.

The President wants the federal government to begin treating contributions from major corporations to help cover the health insurance costs of their employees -- most of which were won through decades of organizing, struggle and bargaining by the unions that represent those employees -- as taxable income. In effect, workers who have quality coverage would be punished, as would the firms that provide that coverage.

The Bush plan's race-to-the-bottom approach to health care policy is being pitched as a way to encourage Americans who currently lack insurance coverage to go out and buy it -- and then to take advantage of an expanded tax deduction for individuals and families that purchase plans.

The problem, of course, while the Bush plan penalizes those who are insured, it does not begin to provide enough support for those who lack it.

Thus, if the Bush initiative were implemented, it would lower the quality of health-care coverage for those who have it while failing to provide it to all of those who lack it. "The President's so-called health care proposal won't help the uninsured, most of whom have limited incomes and are already in low tax brackets," explains the key player in Congress on health care issues, Congressman Pete Stark, the California Democrat who chairs the House Ways and Means Committee's powerful health subcommittee. "But it will hurt middle-income Americans, whose employers will shift even more cost and risk to their employees.''

HSAS DO NOT OFFER MEANINGFUL SAVINGS FOR AMERICANS:  "Low- and middle-income uninsured people will gain meager or no tax savings" from health savings accounts, according to a Commonwealth Fund study. Roughly 50 percent of uninsured adults pay no federal  income taxes, meaning that "tax incentives for high-deductible health plans would have little impact on uninsured adults." Moreover, "uninsured people in the middle income tax bracket would see potential savings of just 3 percent to 6 percent on a typical high-deductible health plan premium of $2,000."

HSAS PRIMARILY BENEFIT THE RICH: The Government Accountability Office (GAO) found "that the average income of HSA users was $133,000 in 2004, compared to $51,000 for all non-elderly tax filers." Additionally, these HSAs are being used as tax shelters for the wealthy. In 2004, the "majority of people with HSAs withdrew no funds from the accounts...and HSA participants in the focus groups that the GAO convened spoke of using their HSAs for tax sheltering purposes." Most low-income individuals "do not face high enough tax liability to benefit in a significant way from tax deductions associated with HSAs" and people "with chronic conditions, disabilities, and others with high-cost medical needs may face even greater out-of-pocket costs under HSA-qualified health plans."

HSAS INCREASE THE NUMBER OF UNINSURED: HSAs are "not likely to be an important contributor to expanding coverage among uninsured people" because most of uninsured Americans "do not face high-enough marginal tax rates to benefit substantially from the tax deductibility of HSA contributions." Another study by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities found that Bush's proposal "would induce some currently uninsured individuals to purchase insurance, but also would encourage some employers to drop health insurance or to reduce the amounts they contribute toward their employees' health insurance costs, since employers would know their workers could get a tax deduction if they purchased coverage on their own. The number of people who would lose coverage due to actions that their employers would take would likely exceed the number of uninsured people who would gain insurance."

AMERICANS ARE DISSATISFIED WITH HSAS: Just 33-42 percent of enrollees in consumer-driven health plans were satisfied with their health care, compared to 63 percent of those people with traditional coverage. Two-thirds of people prefer an employer-selected set of plans over an employer-funded account and choosing insurance on their own

Editor's Note: the State of the Union speech is so loaded with things that are not true in addition to HSAs it is hard to keep up with them. However the site below gives a comprehensive list of the statements and next to them the facts in hard numbers.

State of the Union - By the Numbers

In his 2007 State of the Union address, President Bush hailed the state of the union as "strong", pointing to the growing economy, new jobs, and record home ownership. But for Americans worrying about how to make ends meet around their kitchen tables at night, the country is headed in the wrong direction. Just look at the numbers, and how Bush's rhetoric has failed to match reality throughout his presidency...

For complete six page list of "reality" figures vs. Bush statements >>>>
http://home.ourfuture.org/sotu.html

CMP ALERTS SENIORS TO TELEPHONE "ATTACK"
     Central Maine Power Company warns customers to be wary of calls from scam artists demanding immediate payment of electric utility bills.   Within the past day, three customers have reported receiving calls from individuals claiming to represent CMP and requesting immediate payment for electric service. The callers have requested bank account numbers to allow electronic transfer payments to avoid disconnection.

     “Representatives honestly calling on behalf of CMP will have the customer’s CMP account number, account balance, account history, and service address in front of them. Anyone receiving a call from someone claiming to represent CMP should ask for that information from the caller to confirm that it is a legitimate call,” said CMP spokesman John Carroll. “Customers should always be wary of giving information about your personal identification or bank account numbers over the phone.”

    Central Maine Power has contacted the Maine State Police to notify them of the incidents, and will cooperate with the authorities in any investigation. Anyone who receives a similar call requesting access to bank accounts or personal identification information should report it directly the local police or sheriff’s department and contact his or her financial institution.

PLAN TO OVERHAUL MEDICARE AND SOCIAL SECURITY

Two senior senators have proposed an idea that resurfaces periodically: a new commission that would recommend overhauls for Social Security and Medicare.  Sen. Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) and Sen. Pete Domenici (R-NM) said that their concept differs from others in that it is a bipartisan idea that would make the panel permanent.  As planned, one year after the commission is created, it would recommend changes to Social Security and Medicare.  It would then make such recommendations every five years thereafter.  "We need to be very wary of proposals like this," said Ruben Burks, Secretary-Treasurer of the Alliance.  "The last commission in 2001 was stacked with privatizers, and the American people soundly rejected their recommendations."

SENIORS NEED TO BE WARY OF SOCIAL SECURITY SCARE STORIES
1-24 The Nation
The same sorts of claims as were made about weapons of mass destruction are being made about Social Security, with the goal of inflicting a similar disaster on the country's workers and retirees.

Just to get the facts straight, according to the projections from the non-partisan Congressional Budget Office (CBO), Social Security can pay all scheduled benefits until 2046 with no changes whatsoever. CBO projects that even if nothing is ever done, the program could continue to pay almost 80 percent of scheduled benefits forever, providing retirees in the second half of this century with benefits that are far higher than today's seniors receive. In short, the idea that Social Security is about to go bankrupt - that there will be "nothing there" for young workers - is nonsense, as everyone familiar with the projections knows.

But, we keep hearing the drumbeat about Social Security's looming bankruptcy for the same reason that we heard the stories about Saddam's weapons of mass destruction: powerful interests - who, in this case, want to gut and/or privatize the program. The financial industry could make a fortune in fees and commissions if they could ever get their hands on Social Security.

Also, because the program is progressive, high-income workers, the folks who finance the presidential campaigns of both political parties, don't get a good deal from Social Security. These people would likely do better putting their money in the stock market. And, they have no qualms about gutting the country's most important social program to increase their returns, just as they don't mind giving the country a huge deficit to get another tax cut.

While the Bush administration is likely to lead the charge on any renewed effort to cut and/or privatize Social Security, because of the power of the constituencies behind the gutting of Social Security, he is likely to find allies among leading Democrats in Congress. Similarly, the media can be counted on to help sell the Social Security scare stories.
For complete article>>>>
http://www.commondreams.org/views07/0124-20.htm

MAY STOP DRUG COMPANIES FOR USING "PAY-OFF AGREEMENTS"
A practice that has long aggravated many senior citizens, struggling to pay for the prescription drugs they need, may soon come to an end. A bill to "explicitly" prohibit brand-name drug manufacturers from using pay-off agreements to keep less expensive generic equivalents off the market was announced in the senate by the new chairman of the Special Committee on Aging, Herb Kohl (D-WI).

"When big brand-name drug companies pay generic manufacturers to stop generic drugs from reaching pharmacy shelves, consumers lose big-time," Kohl said. "We can't say we care about the high cost of prescription drugs while turning a blind eye to backroom deals between brand and generic drug companies. This practice has got to stop."

Senator Leahy said, "Some drug firms have colluded to pad their profits by forcing consumers to pay higher prices than they would pay for lower-cost generics. Now that this sweetheart dealing has been uncovered, we owe it to consumers to end it. Our bill is a clear-cut opportunity to remove an impediment to competition that prevents the marketplace from working as it should -- to benefit consumers, and not just the drug companies."

For complete article>>>>
http://www.seniorjournal.com/NEWS/Politics/2007/7-01-26-SenateBillToStop.htm

Sponsored Links

CONFERENCE ON AGING FULL ARA REPORT AVAILABLE
Bush Misused Conference to Advance His Political Agenda
 

On the first anniversary of the 2005 White House Conference on Aging, the Alliance for Retired Americans has released a sharply-worded rebuttal to a Bush administration summary of the conference which grossly misrepresented the views of the delegates on issues such as Medicare and Social Security.

The new report outlines the politicization and mismanagement of the decennial conference charged with developing policy recommendations for the President and Congress.  The Alliance report chronicles the Administration’s efforts to misuse the conference to advance its political agenda.

At a cost to taxpayers of $7 million, the Administration ran the conference in a way that squelched meaningful debate, used flawed voting processes to distort the views of delegates, and relegated many important policy recommendations to hard-to-find appendices of the report.  President Bush became the first sitting president to choose not to attend a White House aging conference. 

Today’s report was prompted by the Bush administration’s dramatic failure to accurately reflect the conference proceedings.  For example, nowhere is it mentioned that a vast majority of the delegates opposed the Bush plan to privatize Social Security.  Similarly, the delegates’ support for major changes to Medicare Part D completely disappeared.  The strongest delegate support was for comprehensive drug coverage under Medicare with the government negotiating lower drug prices.  However, this was bundled together with several other recommendations in the report.

“In the face of such political pressure, delegates to this conference made some strong and substantive points.  The Bush administration should listen to, not silence, dissenting views.  We call upon the new Congress to take a critical look at this White House whitewash and develop a comprehensive agenda to improve the health and well-being of older Americans,” said Edward F. Coyle, the Alliance’s Executive Director.

For full conference report>>>>>
http://www.retiredamericans.org/index.php?tg=fileman&idx=get&inl=1&id=11&gr=Y&path=&file=WHCoA+Report.pdf

Note: The above report is 57 pages long but you can scan it on your screen and then select any group of pages you may wish to print out.

ALLEN MAKES IT EASIER TO COMMUNICATE WITH HIM
    Rep. Allen launched a new Congressional website earlier this month with a number of special features, including a photo gallery, audio clips, and an improved video section.  Visitors can also view the “What Tom’s Reading” section to find out what is currently on Tom Allen’s bookshelf.  In addition to detailed issue pages, a new “Maine Issues” section is accessible throughout the entire website.  This section will be devoted to topics ranging from the local to the global that directly affect life in Maine.  Current topics include the redevelopment of Brunswick Naval Air Station, Maine’s children and families, and global warming.    
    In addition to emailing Rep. Allen at rep.tomallen@mail.house.gov, constituents can use Rep. Allen’s updated webform to communicate their concerns.  The new webform allows faster and more efficient processing of constituent comments.
     Rep. Allen has also launched a new direct electronic communication system to respond to constituents and to keep them updated on issues they care about.  Constituents can specify which issues they’re interested in, and receive periodic updates via email on federal action on those issues.  In the last few months, tens of thousands of constituents have signed up to receive updates on issues ranging from land conservation to Iraq to child care.
 

Editor's Note: The box below may help you follow bills and issues and provide other information about the Maine Legislature. It is also permanently available on the home page at www.maineaflcio.org
 

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NEW TO THE INTERNET? TRY THIS
Seven Free Lessons on How to Use the Internet from AARP
For complete article>>>>>>
http://www.aarp.org/learntech/computers/basic_web/
and there is a raft of more information on all aspects of Internet use at:
http://www.infopeople.org/resources/
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Previous Issues/Resources

In each issue we feature some Internet resource (i.e. job links, senior lunch locations, social security links etc.and a number of recent issues on the problems of Part D durg program and what seniors can do about it) that may have some permanent value for you. If you did not save the links and need/want them again you can get previous issues of the Maine Senior Report by going to:

http://www.maineaflcio.org/seniors%20report%20index%20past%20issues.htm

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Editor’s Note: We are working to expand our mailing list and encourage forwarding this news report to others. You can remove your name/address from our list by sending name and “newsletter delete” to the Maine Council of Senior Citizens –  send an e-mail to MCSC Director Neena Quirion at mcsc@mseaseiu.org

Ed Schlick

Editor