Earned Benefits Equality and Family Reunification Act

Key Points

• This bill creates a 10-year demonstration program allowing Medicare beneficiaries to use their benefits while living in certain foreign countries. Currently, Medicare generally only covers care received in the United States, so this would be a major shift for retirees who want to live abroad.
• The program must initially include at least 11 countries, with 10 already named in the bill: Canada, Germany, India, Israel, South Korea, the Philippines, Panama, Mexico, Dominican Republic, and Ghana. These countries were likely chosen based on where large numbers of American retirees or immigrant communities have ties.
• Participation is voluntary, and the program must accept at least 150,000 people. Beneficiaries can leave the program at any time and return to regular Medicare coverage in the United States without penalty.
• The government's costs per person in the program cannot exceed what Medicare would have spent on equivalent care in the U.S. This is designed to save the government money by taking advantage of lower healthcare costs in other countries.
• The bill includes safeguards for quality of care, requiring foreign doctors to be properly licensed and mandating fraud prevention training. The program also aims to help low-income Americans and enable family reunification.