Steven Holt: “This legislation would improve their benefits. It would provide free preventive and wellness care. It would improve the…”

“This legislation would improve their benefits. It would provide free preventive and wellness care. It would improve the primary care and better coordination of care, not just so there is more efficiency and less waste, although there would be, but so that patients don't get the runaround. It does not help their health to have unnecessary or counterproductive tests or procedures. It would enhance nursing home care. And it would strengthen the Medicare Trust Fund, extending solvency for another 8 or 9 years. That is real. You had spoken earlier about the doughnut hole. I always hesitate to talk about the doughnut hole. I think of it as a cliff. Depending on how expensive your monthly medication is, along about August or September or October, you have exceeded the expenditure limit on Medicare, the way things stand now, and you fall off the cliff. And if you want to keep taking the medicines, you have got to pay out of pocket. Under the bill, the beneficiaries not only would receive in 2010 a $250 rebate and 50 percent discounts on brand-name drugs beginning in the coming year, but also complete closure of this doughnut hole, or better yet, filling in this cliff in the years to come.”