Many years ago – before the Affordable Care Act – I received a letter from the Social Security Administration. This letter informed me that I was being automatically enrolled in Medicare, and that it would cost me over $400, to be automatically deducted from my social security disability check each month.
This gave me a great deal of concern and upset. I was living with my girlfriend (now my wife) who had a full-time job with a generous insurance clause that allowed employees to add domestic partners to their plan. So I already had insurance coverage. Very good insurance coverage. I later went on to use it to get bilateral cochlear implants. My total out-of-pocket cost was $100.
So I called the Social Security Administration to explain this. I explained that I already had coverage, and that our monthly household income could not take a $400 hit for coverage that was completely redundant and would go unused, especially since it only cost us a few extra dollars to add me to my girlfriend’s employer plan.
The person on the other end said some stuff about penalties for not being covered, none of which meant anything practical to me. I. Had. Coverage. And I could prove it.
So they cancelled my (completely unnecessary and costly) Medicare coverage and I went on with my life.
A few years later, my girlfriend lost her job, and our insurance coverage along with it. So NOW was the appropriate time for me to have Medicare coverage. I went to my local Social Security Administration office to sign up. I showed them the very valid and indisputable paper proof of my coverage.
They flatly refused to accept it.
They decided to hit me with the maximum late sign-up penalty of 90%. This meant that I would pay 190% of the monthly cost of Medicare coverage.
I have been paying that penalty for years.
To this day, not ONE person has satisfactorily explained the logic or reason behind making anyone who depends on Social Security and Medicare pay extra because they signed up late. Those of us who depend on these services do so because we don’t have a lot of money of our own and have trouble getting or keeping employment through no fault of our own.
This penalty is both puerile and, in my admittedly layman opinion, in violation of the 8th Amendment to the US Constitution, which provides protection against cruel and unusual punishment.
Making people who are elderly and/or disabled pay a penalty for refusing or not having Medicare is absolutely ludicrous, inhumane, and should be a crime. It should be illegal, and as far as I am concerned, the Constitution says it is.
As my example above makes clear, some people have valid reasons. Others may not have sufficient access to information. And although the cost of Medicare has decreased dramatically since the time I was first automatically enrolled, there may be people for whom $140 a month is a lot of money, and they can’t afford to pay more than that because they “signed up late.” (Really, folks, are we still in high school? Do I need a hall pass to go to the bathroom?)
Under no circumstances is financially penalizing seniors and those with disabilities for “being late” acceptable or civilized. How does arbitrarily ramping up health care costs help those without wealth? No society can behave this way and claim to be civilized.
I invite you to join me in taking this harmful and cruel policy off the books.