Time to Reopen Medicare Enrollment and Make the Penalties Fair

In May, while I was doing meetings around my Ohio district, I realized that the penalty system in the Medicare Prescription Drug plan was pretty misleading.  We have been telling seniors that if they chose not to enroll before May 15th, they would face a 1% per month late penalty.  But seniors actually can’t sign up until the open enrollment in November.  So, even if you wanted to enroll in June and pay a 1% penalty, you have to wait until November and pay 7%.  That seemed unfair to me so I introduced the TIME Act yesterday which opens enrollment again for the remainder of 2006 and charges a true 1% per month penalty.

I know there are over 100 proposals to change Medicare and I’m not here to add another log to the fire.  My bill is a compromise to the proposals to waive the late penalty altogether.  Because the program is brand new and the penalty stays with you for the rest of your life, we need to make sure seniors understand the late penalty and get a fair shake at participating.