The Illinois Cares Rx Program comes to an end tomorrow, and will leave some 165,000 seniors without the financial assistance they need to pay for medications or Medicare Part D premiums. The cuts are being made due to budget cutbacks, with state legislators in Illinois expecting to save an estimated $72 million with the elimination of this program.
According to an article in The Effingham Daily News, calls have been pouring in to the Midland area Agency on Aging, with thousands of seniors concerned about paying for their next prescriptions.
From the article:
“There’s just not many alternatives out there to help,” she said. The agency is helping seniors determine if there is another option by seeing if they are eligible for federal Medicaid or low-income subsidy programs. However, the income guidelines for those programs are lower than the state’s Illinois Cares Rx program.
Illinois is one of 27 states that had a prescription drug assistance program. According to Barczewski, many states dropped such programs when Medicare Part D was introduced through Social Security.
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