Eliminate 2 Year Waiting Period For Medicare Qualification for Disabled Say Lawmakers

More than 75 advocacy groups for the disabled as well as lawmakers have started to lobby for the wait time for the disabled to qualify for Medicare to be eliminated. This according to a report from the AP/ San Francisco Chronicle. According to the current rule, when the social security administration deems people ill or disabled then they are eligible for Medicare benefits after only a two year waiting period.

At any point of time there are about1.5 million people who are disabled are made to wait for insurance from Medicare. Often people deplete their savings on private insurance in the interim. Often due to the gap in insurance and cost of treatments people forego treatments and as a result what happens is the cost of treatment is higher when insurance is granted.

Lobbying is done to the future Obama administration to solve this problem. Funding is the biggest obstacle to overcome. $9 bn of additional money would be spent by eliminating the wait period. The cost would be offset a little by a saving of $4 bn from Medicaid.