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- Senate Democrats are weighing sending millions of seniors up to $1,000 cash vouchers so they can purchase new Medicare benefits next year.
- Democrats want to produce tangible benefits in people's lives ahead of next year's midterms.
- The Bush administration once offered prescription drug cards, but critics complained the program was complicated to sign up for.
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Senate Democrats are weighing issuing millions of seniors up to $1,000 in cash vouchers in the $3.5 trillion social spending plan so they can purchase new Medicare benefits next year while they're set up, according to a person familiar with the negotiations.
The person spoke on condition of anonymity to share details of private negotiations. The Washington Post first reported the story.
Senior Democrats haven't finalized an amount, though $600 to $1,000 is the range under consideration with talks still in flux.
Senate Democrats are seeking to expand Medicare so it covers dental, vision, and hearing benefits in their party-line social spending package, which they will press through the reconciliation process requiring only a simple majority vote.
They want to set up the programs as quickly as possible. That set off a clash with House Democrats who introduced legislation initiating vision coverage next year, hearing in 2023, with dental covered in 2028.
It reflects the mounting desire among many Democrats to produce tangible benefits in people's lives ahead of the 2022 midterms where they'll be defending needle-thin majorities in the House and Senate. Seniors over age 65 generally vote at higher rates, making them a key voting bloc and more so in midterm races.
"I think Democrats feel very strongly that it's important to move now so, in particular, we have results to show the American people a year from now in the late summer or early fall of 2022," Sen. Ron Wyden of Oregon, chair of the Senate Finance Committee, said in an interview last week.
Sen. Bernie Sanders of Vermont, who chairs the Senate Budget Committee, balked at the House version of the Medicare expansion on Wednesday. "I don't want to see it as drawn out as far as the House has proposed," he said on a press call.
Still, experts say it could take years for Medicare to stand up the new programs. Medicare was last expanded in 2003 under President George W. Bush to cover prescription drugs, and it started insuring people three years later. In addition, some benefits may be easier than others to get off the ground.
"To implement a new dental benefit successfully will take some time, primarily because Medicare doesn't have a relationship with dentists across the country," Tricia Neumann, executive director of Medicare policy at the Kaiser Family Foundation, told Insider.
Neuman noted the federal government has issued vouchers or drug cards in the past. In 2004, the Bush administration started offering discount cards to cut costs for seniors while Medicare prepared to administer the new prescription drug benefits and insurance plans. Critics at the time complained it was difficult and confusing for seniors to sign up for one.
"Another thing about vouchers it would need to be done carefully to protect against fraud," Neumann said.
Not every effort is successful. Last year, President Donald Trump floated sending $200 prescription drug cards for seniors just before the presidential election. It never materialized and Democrats argued the program was legally dubious.
The nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office projected enlarging Medicare to cover vision, hearing, and dental would cost $358 billion over a decade.