*This is an archive page. The links are no longer being updated. 
1991.09.06 :  Health Insurance Counseling for Seniors

Contact: Bob Hardy (202) 245-6145
September 6, 1991

        Partnership for Health Insurance Counseling, a
federal/state project which encourages volunteer health insurance
counseling programs for America's senior citizens, will be
presented during a two-day conference, Sept. 12-13, featuring Gail
R. Wilensky, Ph.D., administrator, Health Care Financing
Administration, and Charles Kolb, deputy assistant to the president
for domestic policy.  
        Conference proceedings will be held at the Ramada Hotel -
Old Town, 901 North Fairfax St., Alexandria, Va.
        "America's seniors, with their many questions and concerns
relating to their health benefits, will receive peer counseling
through this program," said Wilensky.  "Our goal is to help the
states create a network of senior volunteers helping other seniors
make educated and informed choices concerning their health care
benefits."
        The counseling project was designed and created by a task
force which included officials from the U.S. Department of Health
And Human Services' Health Care Financing Administration and seven
state government participants from California, Massachusetts,
Washington, Maryland, North Carolina, New Jersey and Illinois.  
        The program will facilitate the development of volunteer
health insurance counseling programs for senior citizens and help
to encourage the adoption of grass-roots senior counseling programs
in states where no such programs currently exist.
        Twelve states already have similar low-cost programs for
volunteer operations.  The success of these programs provided the
impetus for the Partnership for Health Insurance Counseling
program.   Training materials drafted by the work group will serve
as a model for start-up counseling programs and will be distributed
at the conference.  Representatives from all 50 state governments
and from the nation's major senior citizen's service organizations
will be briefed on the counseling program by the project's
originators during the two-day conference.
        Wilensky will deliver the keynote address to conference
participants at 9:30 a.m., Sept. 12.  Kolb's noon remarks, also on
the 12th, will address the Bush administration's domestic policy
programs.  On Sept. 13, a representative from the Office of
National Service in the White House is expected to deliver the
conference's closing address.
        To receive additional information, please contact Richard
Getrost, Division of Beneficiary Services, Health Care Financing
Administration, at (301) 966-3211.

                                ###