Few Apply for Medicare Drug Coverage

[Thurston Howe IV]

WASHINGTON - Far from the expected deluge, relatively few patients with cancer and other serious illnesses have applied for generous early Medicare prescription drug coverage.

The Bush administration was planning a lottery to determine who would get the 50,000 slots included in last year's Medicare prescription drug law. Instead, just 6,364 people have applied for the head start on drug insurance for costly cancer medicines taken orally and self-injectable drugs for multiple sclerosis, rheumatoid arthritis and other diseases.

The experience so far is a cautionary tale for the new full-blown Medicare prescription drug benefit scheduled to begin in 2006. Advocates, health-care analysts and even government officials expect that will be even harder to sort out.

"Maybe all of us were overly optimistic about how eager the consumer would be to get into the program," said Nancy Davenport-Ennis, chief executive of the not-for-profit Patient Advocate Foundation, which says it has helped obtain early coverage for 324 people.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=542&ncid=718&e=10&u=/ap/20040911/ap_on_go_ca_st_pe/medicare_cancer_drugs

[shrike]

1. Because the elderly are the smartest people in this country

Let's hope they all get out to vote in November.

[expatriot]

2. except when it comes to butterfly ballots

just kidding, no flames please.

[shrike]

3. Yeah, forgot about those

No flames from me.

[mbperrin]

4. Hmm, misadministration of a needed program by calling it a

lottery? Gee, * hit the trifecta! Why wouldn't incredibly ill people, some near death, want to trust themselves to a health "lottery"? Of course, all the talk about limits and expenses is just plain horseshit, since we in the US already pay more per person for health costs than any other place on the planet.

A single payer program would cover everyone (not just lottery winners), and would cost LESS than the current jacked up system. Look at those tall buildings that HMOs are in! How do you think having these middlemen in with their fees SAVES money? Doesn't! It does make them rich, though, and turns the rest of us into supplicants. Might as well rename the whole system the Lourdes Medical Miracle System - "If you can get care, it's a Miracle!"

[Owlet]

6. Heh heh..

Well said!:toast:

[sandraj]

14. Great post

n/t

[napi21]

5. I heard this on Wash. Journal this morning.

When Pedro read it, you could hear the "surprise" attitude in the message the writer was expressing. I wonder if ShrubCo now realizes it was a big mistake for them to insist on passing that medicare scam in that bribery game at 4:30AM?

This actually renews a little faith in the Am. people that they do see through what a scam that really was!

[Thurston Howe IV]

7. Medicare bill backfired on them

This was supposed to be the big domestic initiative that stole the thunder from the democratics this election. They screwed up the administration part of it so much that it backfired on them. They should have seen it coming -- old folks aren't exactly known to be able to cope with complex changes very well. I think the complexity part was the political flaw. The multi-billion dollar government subsidy to Big Pharma might have been buried if not for that.

[napi21]

8. Complexity is part of it but the biggest problem is that it doesn't

really do much to help the people who need it!The fact that the inserted the "Cannot negotiat drug prices" line is just plain stupid, and conspicuously catering to the drug companies! Saving 25% on your drug bill isn't helping if your prescription bill is several hundred $$ a month.

It sure did backfire! And you remember that AARP began with total support of this bill, but there was such a backlash at them, they've since changed their mind too.

[Thurston Howe IV]

10. Yes, corruption is the biggest problem

I believe we agree on the essentials. If the bill had brought temporary relief of drug costs this year (until drug prices rose again and wiped out the savings), and had been straightforward to receive, most seniors wouldn't have looked under the covers to see what an atrocious deal it was for the country. And Bush would have won significant political gain from a transitory benefit to seniors that shoved billions more into the drug companies pockets. My point is that politically, it was a bust because of the complexity. Looking at the whole picture, the deal sucked from begining to end.

[napi21]

12. Agreed! I suggest Kerry state that he would overturn this BS bill and

make a real Medicare drug bill that would HELP the seniors. He does say all the time that his HC plan will provide most people with a health care option, but I don't recall hearing anything specifically speaking to making this fraudulent one go away completely!!!

[Thurston Howe IV]

13. I had the same thought

about repealing the Medicare drug bill and rolling it into his healthcare initiative. $537 Billion is a lot to play with if you do it right. Like being able to negotiate prices. That provision preventing price negotiation with the drug companies was the most blatant bullshit I've seen in a long time, and yet it hardly gets mentioned by the media. Not that drug companies are big advertisers or anything like that.

[sonicx]

9. 'lottery' for people's health. jesus...nt

[happynewyear]

11. self-injectable drugs for multiple sclerosis

and don't forget, people with MS aren't stupid either, they tend to be younger people who are DISABLED and fortunate if they have managed to work long enough to even qualify for Medicare!

Do these poisonous injectable drugs even work? I personally think not and gee whizzz they only cost ~$2,000.00 a month and gee whizzz, the person injecting themselves with these drugs (or is this the clause "injecting themselves" - I believe Medicare laws REQUIRE that a physician inject one of them that they now cover (Avonex)) are still liable for a hefty chunk of this price and gee whizzzzzz who the hell with MS has this kind of $ floating around I'd like to know? :grr: :grr: :grr:


:dem: :kick: