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Letter to the Honorable William "Bill" M. Thomas 1 (November 2003)

handle is hein.congrec/cbo9262 and id is 1 raw text is: November 14, 2003 Honorable William Bill M. Thomas Chairman Committee on Ways and Means U.S. House of Representatives Washington, DC 20515 Dear Mr. Chairman: In connection with the conference on H.R. I and S. 1, I am pleased to provide additional information you requested regarding Medicare beneficiaries who receive health insurance provided by employers. First, you requested more detail on the number of Medicare beneficiaries who are projected under current law to receive prescription drug coverage through any form of employer-sponsored insurance. Second, you requested clarification about the Congressional Budget Office's (CBO's) projections that enactment of the new Part D prescription drug benefit under H.R. I would prompt some employers to cease providing supplemental drug coverage for retirees. CBO's analysis has focused on Medicare beneficiaries who enroll in Part B of Medicare, reflecting the assumption that those who choose not to enroll in Part B (with its 75 percent federal subsidy) would also decide not to enroll in Part D. We also project that the drug coverage available under current law to the working aged (who will be covered as active workers or their spouses) and to retirees enrolled in the Federal Employees Health Benefits or Tricare for Life programs would be unaffected by the new Medicare benefit. Consequently, we anticipate that they too would generally not enroll in Part D. Therefore, to estimate the costs under Part D for individuals with employer- sponsored drug coverage, CBO focused on nonfederal retirees with relatively generous coverage. In our cost estimate for H.R. I and S. I as passed by the House and Senate respectively (dated July 22, 2003), CBO projected that 11.7 million Part B participants would have such drug coverage under current law in 2006.

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