Progressive Talking Points 1/19/06

Medicare Drug Plan – Is Mike Brown Running This?

It was touted as a "seamless transition" and lauded by our President as the right move to make towards ensuring better health care for our seniors. However, the Medicare prescription drug program has done anything but help its intended targets, our nation's neediest and disabled citizens. Despite the typical administration PR blitz, the recipients of the program are confused and finding it extremely difficult to get the drugs they need. In addition, states are footing a bill that is not their responsibility.

• The massive administration problems could have been avoided. The new Medicare prescription drug plan is hurting those who need it the most. Many low-income and disabled beneficiaries are experiencing problems getting their medications. Either the health plans throw up roadblocks to approving the drugs, or the patients, many of whom have extremely low incomes and chronic health conditions, can't afford the co-payments. Sen. Jay Rockefeller (D-WV) foresaw this problem last spring, but his bill to ease the transition went nowhere in Congress.
  
  
• The burden of fixing this problem is on the administration, not the patients or pharmacists. The task of solving the numerous problems associated with the Medicare drug plan is falling to patients and pharmacists. Problems faced include patients being turned away because of computer glitches, and the government’s response is to tell people, “don't leave the pharmacy without your drugs.” Pharmacists are spending hours on the phone “trying to reach insurance companies that administer the drug benefit under contract to Medicare.” They shouldn’t have to do that – the government should take responsibility for fixing its problems.
  
  
• States have been forced to pick up the tab for the administration’s mistakes. States have been stepping in where the federal government failed, spending millions of dollars to give eligible recipients emergency supplies of prescription drugs. The governors found out this week that the "federal government will not repay states that are making emergency purchases." States will now have to go through the nightmare of trying to recoup their money from the private plans. A bipartisan group of senators – Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-ME), Norm Coleman (R-MN), Charles Schumer (D-NY), Frank Lautenberg (D-NY), and Dianne Feinstein (D-CA) – introduced a bill to repay the states in full, plus interest.