Health News
Governor Quinn's proposed budget includes the elimination of the entire Illinois Cares Rx program, which provides prescription drug assistance to low income seniors and people with disabilities.
The benefits of the Illinois Cares Rx Program to its enrollees are crucial to their health and well-being. Without this assistance, many seniors and people with disabilities on fixed incomes will not be able to afford their needed medications. They will be forced to ration their medications or make choices between paying for rent, food, or medications. There simply is not a lot of ?wiggle room? in their budgets to take on the cost of what the Illinois Cares Rx Program provides.
For most, Illinois Cares Rx is a benefit that assists in paying the premium and initial co-pays under Medicare Part D, which can get extremely high, especially if a person is taking several medications. For Illinois Cares Rx enrollees, this assistance has literally meant the difference between going with or without their medications. In addition to the Part D premium, Illinois Cares Rx pays the deductible ($310 this year) and helps with the co-pays; each prescription filled costs much less with this coverage (e.g., $6.30 instead of $50). It is an enormous savings, especially valuable for individuals with multiple health problems and multiple medications, which is common among Illinois Cares Rx consumers.
A few important things to know about Illinois Cares Rx:
John Coburn
Co-Director, Make Medicare Work Coalition
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Health News
Why We Must Save Illinois Cares Rx
Governor Quinn's proposed budget includes the elimination of the entire Illinois Cares Rx program, which provides prescription drug assistance to low income seniors and people with disabilities.
The benefits of the Illinois Cares Rx Program to its enrollees are crucial to their health and well-being. Without this assistance, many seniors and people with disabilities on fixed incomes will not be able to afford their needed medications. They will be forced to ration their medications or make choices between paying for rent, food, or medications. There simply is not a lot of ?wiggle room? in their budgets to take on the cost of what the Illinois Cares Rx Program provides.
For most, Illinois Cares Rx is a benefit that assists in paying the premium and initial co-pays under Medicare Part D, which can get extremely high, especially if a person is taking several medications. For Illinois Cares Rx enrollees, this assistance has literally meant the difference between going with or without their medications. In addition to the Part D premium, Illinois Cares Rx pays the deductible ($310 this year) and helps with the co-pays; each prescription filled costs much less with this coverage (e.g., $6.30 instead of $50). It is an enormous savings, especially valuable for individuals with multiple health problems and multiple medications, which is common among Illinois Cares Rx consumers.
A few important things to know about Illinois Cares Rx:
- Illinois Cares Rx serves approximately 200,000 low income older adults and people with disabilities each year to pay for necessary and costly medications.
- Governor Quinn has proposed eliminating the entire program without seeking cost savings from other measures first.
- The health care reform law - the Affordable Care Act (ACA) - does not fix the problem that Illinois Cares Rx addresses. The ACA only addresses the Medicare Part D donut hole by closing that gap slowly over the next several years. Low-income older adults and people with disabilities in Illinois still need help paying for premiums, co-pays and donut hole coverage in 2011 and beyond. In other words, even if the donut hole were closed this year, low income seniors and people with disabilities would STILL need Illinois Cares Rx.
John Coburn
Co-Director, Make Medicare Work Coalition
- The Negative Impact Of Smart Act Cuts
This post originally appeared as a letter from Age Options to the IL House of Representatives human Services Appropriations Committee, submitted on Feb. 20, 2013 The cuts to Medicaid that were implemented July 1, 2012 as a result of the SMART Act have...
- Choose Wisely, Illinois: Alternatives For Balancing The Medicaid Budget
On Thursday, April 19, 2012, the Governor released a proposal for the reduction of the current $2.7 billion Medicaid budget deficit. The proposal, developed with a group of legislators on the Medicaid Commission, includes $2 billion in cuts to eligibility...
- Whose Budget Problem Is Worse Than Illinois?
Illinois has a budget problem. Ironically, our state leaders all agree that one of the ways to solve this problem is to pass it along to the household budgets of some of our most vulnerable seniors and people with disabilities. How? ...
- Cutting Illinois Cares Rx Would Be Penny-wise & Pound Foolish
The Chicago Tribune recent editorial, "Time to move on medicaid spending," correctly points out that Illinois must look at its Medicaid spending and implement innovative ways to cut costs while preserving care to its very poor and sick participants. ...
- Older Adults And People With Disabilities In Illinois Are Already Benefiting From Health Care Reform
Older adults and people with disabilities in Illinois are concerned about what they?ve been hearing about changes to the Medicare program and other healthcare reforms that affect them and their families. It is often hard to sort out the facts, so many...