Seniors again face cuts

In “Lamont’s two-year budget takes a middle path,” Connecticut Post, Feb. 10, Ken Dixon notes that the governor shuns an income tax increase for well-to-do residents while declining to tap the state’s hefty budget surplus.

The governor does propose, however, to impose an asset test on senior citizens who participate in the Medicare Savings Program. All persons who qualify for the program receive two very important additional benefits: extra help paying the often significant cost of Medicare prescription drugs, and payment of the Medicare Part B monthly premium. For some participants, the Medicare Savings Program also wraps around Medicare, paying the deductibles and co-insurance.

Like the state, senior citizens save for a rainy day. People sacrifice to put aside savings as a way to prepare for the unexpected: a large, unplanned medical expense, replacing an aging car, etc. These personal savings are the sacrificial funds that the state would penalize by imposing an asset test. Remember, by definition, Medicare Savings Program beneficiaries are low-income. Whatever people manage to save represents foregoing other things in their daily lives. These people aren’t wealthy. The governor is also proposing to limit their life insurance to $1,500, which won’t even cover a cremation. Don’t take away our health insurance in a pandemic.

Our message to Gov. Lamont is clear: Don’t balance the state budget on the backs of senior citizens, who have worked hard all of their lives and contributed to their communities. I urge seniors and their families to oppose any asset test for the Medicare

Savings Program. Testify via Zoom, by phone or in writing against H.B. 6446, An Act Concerning the Governor’s Budget for Human Services, at the Legislature’s Human Services Committee hearing on Thursday, March 4, at 10 a.m.

Elizabeth Brandt

Fairfield