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While Medicare covers emergency room care, unless your father was admitted to the hospital as an inpatient, Medicare Part A may not have covered his hospital stay. If emergency room doctors held your dad "under observation" or as an "outpatient," then his stay was covered under Medicare Part B, and there may have been expensive bills for that hospital stay depending on what other type of insurance your dad had in addition to Medicare. In addition, Medicare has strict rules about the length of stays in the hospital, in order to qualify for limited nursing home coverage for rehabilitation. Medicare does not cover most long - term stays in nursing homes..The inequities don't stop at the different eligibility rules. The new Medicaid benefits aren't available in every state. In 25 states and Washington D.C., Medicaid will for the first time be open to anyone younger than age 65 whose income is no more than 133% of the federal poverty level, ,856 a year. But people living in one of the twenty-five states that have decided not to expand their Medicaid programs will be left out. Younger seniors in those states aren't receiving the same benefit opportunities because the Supreme Court ruled that Obamacare could not compel states to expand their Medicaid programs..The report added, "Since the first case arrived in the U.S. at the start of the year, medical professionals have gone from fumbling in the dark to better understanding which drugs work -- such as steroids and blood thinners, and the antiviral medicine remdesivir. Allocation of intensive medical resources have improved. And doctors have learned to hold off on the use of ventilators for some patients, unlike with many other severe respiratory illnesses..Some of the most talked-about plans using a "chained" consumer price index to calculate annual cost-of-living adjustments, cutting the payroll tax, and reducing benefits for people who are currently retired or nearing retirement would devastate many of the most vulnerable seniors..While the Social Security hold harmless provision provides important protection from Social Security reductions, more money is required to catch up to Medicare Part B levels in following years. If COLAs continue to remain low, premiums would adjusted again due to low COLAs. COLAs would have to be substantially higher in following years or the whole process would happen all over again..TSCL Announces Support for New Legislation.Senate Majority Leader Mitch McConnell has not announced his health care priorities for the Senate this year. He still refuses to bring the bi-partisan Grassley-Wyden bill that would lower prescription drug prices up for debate on the Senate floor so that may be one of the reasons he has not issued information about his priorities.."We do have vaccines and therapeutics coming down the pike," Osterholm said. "But when you actually look at the time period for that, the next six to 12 weeks are going to be the darkest of the entire pandemic.".would significantly drive up costs for older Americans,