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Spokane, Washington  Est. May 19, 1883

Deadline looms to pick Medicare plan

Bob Moos Dallas Morning News

If you’re one of 5.7 million older Americans still lacking prescription drug coverage, government officials have a message for you: Time’s running out.

You have until midnight Monday to enroll in a Medicare plan. After that, you won’t be able to sign up again until Nov. 15. And you’ll pay 1 percent more in premiums for each month you’ve delayed.

Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt says Monday’s deadline won’t be extended, despite some lawmakers’ calls for it to be pushed back to the end of the year.

“The deadline has worked – it’s helped seniors focus on this issue and act,” he said. “An extension would only allow people to put off what they could do today.”

Medicare’s actuaries have figured that 2 million fewer older adults would sign up for prescription coverage now if they were given another 7 1/2 months to do it.

The holdouts fall into several groups, Leavitt said.

Besides the habitual procrastinators, there are healthy seniors who don’t believe they need the insurance and people who think the benefit is for only low-income seniors.

Medicare officials say both notions are wrong.

“Even the healthy should sign up in case they get sick or injured,” said Medicare administrator Mark McClellan. “Buying a low-cost plan now will avoid paying a penalty later.”

Nor is the drug coverage for just poor people. Any Medicare beneficiary is entitled to it regardless of income, McClellan said.

The only seniors who shouldn’t feel any deadline pressure are those with drug coverage from elsewhere that’s as good as Medicare’s, such as from an employer. They won’t be penalized and forced to pay a higher premium if they lose or drop their insurance later and enroll in a Medicare plan.

For everyone else, the eleventh hour is here.

To accommodate an expected rush in the next three days, Medicare will have 6,000 telephone operators available at (800) 633-4227. The agency has also quadrupled its computer capacity at www.medicare.gov.

By midnight Monday, the Bush administration projects it will have enrolled 31.4 million older adults and exceeded its goal of 28 million to 30 million this first year.