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- Reported and committed to finance
- Referred to aging
- Referred to aging
Companion bill
The same bill in the other chamber. A bill becomes law when one version passes both houses and the governor signs it, so either number can carry it.
Provides for cost of living and marriage penalty adjustments to eligibility standards for the program for elderly pharmaceutical insurance coverage
In Assembly Committee · Health · Sponsor Steven Englebright
Full text
The text isn't available here yet. Check nysenate.gov.
Sponsor's memo
Title of bill
An act to amend the elder law, in relation to cost of living and marriage penalty adjustments to eligibility standards for the program for elderly pharmaceutical insurance coverage
Purpose or general idea of the bill
To eliminate the marriage penalty currently existing in the schedules for EPIC registration fees and personal covered drug expenditures (deductions).
Summary of provisions
The bill amends section 254 of the elder law (EPIC) by renumbering the current subsections 1 and 2 for cost of living adjustments as 1(a) and 1(b), and adding a new subsection 2. Marriage penalty adjustment, which directs the elderly pharmaceutical insurance coverage panel (consisting of the commissioners of the departments of education and health, the superintendent of insurance, and the directors of the state office for the aging and the division of the budget) to adjust registration fees as follows: first, joint income for a married couple is defined to mean income divided by two; and second, the panel is directed to set quarterly registration fees and deductibles for married couples at a level that is no greater than the fees and deductibles for individuals of comparable income.
Justification
Current EPIC schedules for registration fee and deductible assume that a married couple has greater resources than a single person, but with the rising costs of drugs, it is no longer true--if it ever was--that two can pay medical costs, when all other bills are accounted for, as cheaply as one. This legislation recognizes the important role played in the setting of fees and deductibles by the EPIC panel, and uses that mechanism to require adjustments.
The current fee and deductible schedule produce on average, fees for married that are 150%-200% more than fees for singles, and deductibles that, on average and where comparable, are 160% - 165% more than singles.
Legislative history
2005-2006 - S.2971: Aging, Finance
2007-2008 - S.118: Aging, Finance
Fiscal implications
To be determined.
Effective date
April 1, after it becomes law.
Summaries, headlines and scores are AI-generated from the official bill text. How we score bills. Source: NYS Open Legislation.