SUN CITY – If there’s one issue that’s a hot topic right now in Sun City, its healthcare. More accurately, healthcare reform. And depending where you stand on the issue, “reform” is either a good or bad word in your mouth.
But what do we know for certain?
It seems like the deeper people delve into the new healthcare reform, the more questions they find and the less answers they have, which is why the Sun City Civics Committee invited Associate State Director of Communications Heather Heppner of AARP Illinois to Sun City on Monday, May 24 to discuss some of the changes and shed some light on the new bill.
“My goal is to come here today and provide you with the information you need to know about the laws to make the best decisions for you and your family,” Heppner began the Civics Committee Healthcare Forum.
Heppner immediately followed her introduction with iterating to residents that the law is passed and that there are a lot of opinions about whether the law should or shouldn’t have been.
“We can certainly respect all those opinions here today,” Heppner said and plunged into the reform and how it affects those 65 and older.
(With a bill that exceeds 1,000 pages and with the forum running a little over one-and-a-half hours, there is far too much information to cover in the room allotted here. However, comprehensive resources include www.healthreform.gov, where visitors can find a breakdown of the new law’s benefits for seniors, and www.aarp.org/getthefacts. Other Internet searches will yield a complete list of pros and cons to the reform.)
Heppner broke down the forum into two categories: Information for residents on Medicare and information for residents who are not.
Heppner was met receptivity and was challenged by audience questions, as well.
A particular topic of interest at the forum included the closing of the Medicare Part D coverage gap, or “doughnut hole,” by 2020.
“Does this bill address the different formularies that different companies have?” asked one audience member, to which Heppner responded, “The answer is no. The bill does not get into issues of whether a particular insurance company can change their formulary in the middle of the year.”
Other questions and answers revolved around concierge medicine, mandated insurance coverage for citizens by 2014, pre-existing medical conditions, among many others.
Although the reform has little bearing on John Banasek of N.27, he attended the forum to “get a broader understanding of how the healthcare reform act affects seniors and … I came to see what the reaction of the crowd was at how much misunderstanding there is out there [about the bill].”
Banasek said that some of his questions were answered, and for the ones that were not, he presented them to Heppner on provided note cards to be answered later.
“The Civics Committee is always looking for ways to enhance the knowledge of the Community,” said Civics Committee Chair Herm Faubl. “It [the forum] went pretty well. Mostly, of course, the [topics] have been known. But … too many people don’t know what’s going on [with healthcare reform]. So for them it was a good, educational experience.”
