| | |  Health & Beauty | July 2009 
US Medicare Abroad
 Bruce Rossley - DemocratsAbroad.org
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July 11, 2009
 |  | A successful demonstration project to verify feasibility and cost savings is a necessary fist step towards extending Medicare benefits to all U.S. citizens living abroad. |  | | |
We U.S. exparts paid into Medicare all our lives and we continue to pay for Medicare services through deductions from our monthly Social Security checks. But benefits are hard to come by.
Under the current system, an American who chooses to retire outside of the United States must travel back for medical care in order to access the Medicare benefits for which he/she is eligible. This process is both burdensome and inefficient - delaying treatment and incurring expensive travel costs even though medical treatment is typically less expensive locally.
As Chairperson of the over 1,000 member San Miguel de Allende Democrats Abroad, I am pleased to be part of an effort to lobby Congress to change this process.
In April at our global meeting we passed a resolution urging Congress, the Centers for Medicine and the department of Health and Human Services to support the development and implementation of a demonstration project that extends Medicare services to Medicare-eligible U.S. citizens living in Mexico. With over 1 million Americans living here, most of them retirees, it seems like the perfect place to launch this program.
Democrats Abroad believes that it's not only the American population in Mexico that make it the ideal place to try this program, but also because of the lower cost of health care, the high perception of quality of care and the growing number of internationally certified hospitals and health care providers. A successful demonstration project to verify feasibility and cost savings is a necessary fist step towards extending Medicare benefits to all U.S. citizens living abroad.
To show we were serious and committed to this issue we didn't just stop once we passed the resolution, we went to the halls of Congress to speak directly to the men and women we elect to represent us in Washington, D.C. and made our case. I must tell you they were interested, they listened and we truly believe if we keep up this pressure we will see results - but not overnight.
They say that you get motivated to change things once it directly impacts you -the Medicare issue affects us all- it is an issue of fairness.
And we need your help. So get involved, write a letter, tell your story and join us in this fight by visiting www.DemocratsAbroad.org and becoming a member. If we all stand up we can make a difference, it starts right here in Mexico. |
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