The government should have set up the prescription drug plan in 2003 as part of Medicare Part B. The plan should have covered 80 percent of medications, just like Medicare part B covers doctors visits…
Medicare recipients should not have gotten charged an extra premium and extra deductible for prescription drugs. The Medicaid recipients who already had prescription drug coverage should not have been included in the Medicare Part D program.
The dishonest Republicans placed the 20 million Medicaid recipients in this program to hide the fact that the existing Medicare beneficiaries and Social Security beneficiaries would get a meager 20 percent discount on average, with the high deductible and premiums and the coverage gap.
The Republicans also included the Medicaid beneficiaries so they could claim that more people signed up. What the Republicans don’t say is that these people got taken in against their will…
more below
Now, the dems are talking about a six month extension to choose a Medicare D(isaster) plan, while, at the same time, encouraging people to sign up for one! According to Rep. Marion Berry of Arkansas,
“Medicare Part D is the FEMA of health care.”
Berry’s statement sounds a lot like Sen. Kent Conrad’s earlier claim,
“There has been no greater government failure since Katrina.”
Based on a survey of 800 people that was commissioned by America’s Health Insurance Plans(AHIP), beneficiaries are now having little difficulty in determining which Medicare D(isaster) plan best suits their needs. However, Robert Hayes, of the Medicare Rights Organizations cautioned in an email to the WaPo
“The HMO industry and its Washington lobbyists may be the least trusted sources of honest data in the country…The HMO industry will spend millions to protect this cash cow that the Bush Administration and Congressional leadership gave it.”
More from Newsday:
…We must remove all these Republican federal administration politicians from the presidential level and the Republican Congress. And let us not forget our state representatives. If they, too, advocated for this Part D mess, then they too should be voted out.
Let’s stop mumbling among ourselves and cursing these politicians; let’s get rid of them and let them know why.
These politicians forget that they are voted into office by the American people and they are supposed to work for us and do what is good for us … not for the lobbyists for the health and insurance companies.
Medicare D(isaster) Hell:
My daughter has epilepsy, a liver transplant and now rheumatoid arthritis. If that is not enough misery, as a dual eligible she was placed in a Part D plan. The insurance company denied her most expensive drug.
With the help of many advocates, including Abbott Laboratories (who make the medication), her congressman, her doctor, and a screaming mother, she was finally granted a one-year supply, to be reviewed at the end of the year. But to compound her misery, she was denied two medications that were originally in the formulary but have now been removed.
What chance does an elderly or a handicapped person or a poor, critically ill person have to survive this nightmare if he or she doesn’t have the helpers my daughter has?
The trouble is just beginning. Next year premiums will rise, deductibles will be instituted where none exist now, and drugs that previously were covered will be dropped from coverage. But we poor suckers will be locked in while the insurance companies play fast and loose with our benefits.
What we desperately need is a leader who can organize a million-person “schlepp” to Washington. Most of us are too old, weak, sick and handicapped to organize it. But I bet we would go and raise a riot.
You do what you’ve got to do!