A DRAFT copy of this timely and
important study has been made available. It is not for
attribution or citation. An official Backgrounder will be
published soon.
Millions of American seniors have worked hard their entire lives
in the belief that they would receive health insurance benefits,
including coverage for prescription drugs, from their employer
after retirement. Today, however, their retiree drug coverage is in
peril, and their deferred compensation for those benefits could be
lost.
Current law makes it quite easy to change existing retiree
health benefit policies: a fact that places millions of seniors and
their beneficiaries at risk of losing the private coverage they
already have. Passage of a universal Medicare drug entitlement will
only serve to hasten and accelerate the decline in
employer-sponsored retiree health benefits-quality health benefits
that many retirees are counting on.
Policymakers should focus on providing prescription drug
coverage to those Medicare beneficiaries who really need it rather
than on creating perverse incentives for employers to drop the
health benefits they have promised to provide to current and future
retirees.
A DRAFT copy of this important
study has been made available, not for attribution or
citation, until the official Backgrounder is
published.