Rep. Lauren Underwood Hosts Senior Town Hall

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Senior Town Hall

A large crowd filled the room at the 95th Street Library, where Representative Lauren Underwood hosted a Town Hall to discuss issues faced by senior citizens.

A major one brought up by both her and the group of 60 was healthcare.

“Many people have reached out to our office asking for help affording their prescriptions. Sometimes it’s really specific, they talk about insulin. Sometimes it’s programmatically specific to Medicare. And sometimes it’s just like, ‘I can’t afford it we need some help,’” said Rep. Underwood. “And so, we’ve passed this spring a sweep of bills to deal with generics. Because there were a lot of bad actors in that generic space so that the generic drugs were starting to be unaffordable for people.”

Struggles for Seniors

This was helpful to many, but it’s not just affording generic drugs that’s a struggle for seniors.

In most Medicare plans, after a certain amount has ben paid out for covered drugs, some fall into a coverage gap which leads to out of pocket costs for users.

“By October, I’ve spent maybe $8,000 and then I’m in the catastrophic category. So October, November, December I can afford my insulin, but it’s a struggle from March to October. I think drug prices are the biggest problem facing my generation,” said attendee Cindy Mundell.

Taking Action

And Rep. Underwood is taking action by working with her colleagues at the House of Representatives to address this issue.

“Right now we’re working on Medicare solutions. So those Medicare solutions are things like putting a cap on your out of pocket costs. We are also working on legislation to allow for price negotiation out of the department with the drug companies so that will lower your out of pocket cost as well,” said Representative Underwood.

Rep. Underwood encouraged attendees to reach out to elected officials to ask questions and get their voices heard on issues that concern them.

Naperville News 17’s Aysha Ashley Househ reports.