Photo Courtesy of Sen. Schumer’s Office
Sens. Bernie Sanders and Chuck Schumer
By Forum Staff
Citing some of the biggest healthcare complaints of constituents and a rare chance to fix the mess, Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer announced on Sunday his push to have Medicare finally cover dental, vision, and hearing. Schumer said this longtime lack of coverage has plagued and burdened people for far too long, while contributing to more serious and more costly ailments.
Schumer said upcoming legislation that he is leading with Sen. Bernie Sanders (I-Vt.) to passage in the Senate—the Jobs & Family Plan—could help fix this mess. He explained the path forward, detailed data related to this lack of coverage and made the case to once-and-for-all fix this gaping healthcare hole.
“When I talk to people out and about in their communities, one of the things I hear the most involves the gaping healthcare hole in Medicare that simply leaves out coverage for seniors’ dental, vision and hearing—but now we have a real chance to fix this,” said U.S. Senator Charles Schumer. “If you talk to family medicine or primary care doctors, they will tell you with certainty that ignoring medical issues related to dental, vision and hearing often devolves into far more serious medical problems for people—especially seniors—that cost more to treat and are harder to remedy. With the current Medicare platform, those three things are just left out, like it’s no big deal, but it is a big deal—and we should fix it.”
Schumer is working with Sanders to fix this problem and explained that when it comes to coverage of dental, vision and hearing, statistics show that the lack of coverage is having an impact on the nation’s overall health, including costs.
“More than 55 years ago, President Lyndon B. Johnson signed Medicare — one of the most popular and successful government programs in our nation’s history — into law. Before the enactment of Medicare, about half of our senior citizens were uninsured and roughly 35 percent lived in poverty. Today, everyone in America aged 65 or older is guaranteed health-care benefits through Medicare regardless of income or medical condition, while the official poverty rate for seniors is now less than 9 percent. That is the good news. The bad news is that, since its inception in 1965, Medicare has not covered such basic health-care needs as hearing, dental care and vision. The result: Millions of senior citizens have teeth rotting in their mouths, are unable to hear what their children and grandchildren say or can’t read a newspaper because of failing eyesight. It is a cruel irony that older Americans do not have coverage for these benefits at the time when they need it the most,” Sanders recently wrote.
Schumer said upcoming legislation he is now pushing in the Senate can help finally fix this problem. Schumer announced he will push to add dental, vision and hearing Medicare coverage in the upcoming Jobs & Family Plan.
