Posted on 08/11/2004 6:25:01 PM PDT by neverdem
WASHINGTON, Aug. 10 - A new survey suggests that the number of Medicare beneficiaries with negative views of the new prescription drug law far exceeds the number with positive views.
But, it says, beneficiaries want Congress to fix what they see as problems in the law, not repeal it as many Democrats have advocated.
The survey, released on Tuesday by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health, found that 47 percent of beneficiaries had unfavorable views of the law, while 26 percent had favorable views. The rest said they did not have enough information to offer an opinion.
A majority of beneficiaries said they believed that the law would be helpful to most people on Medicare, including low-income people and those with very high drug costs or no other drug coverage. But only 29 percent of beneficiaries believe that the new law will be helpful to them personally, the poll found.
"Views are decidedly more negative than positive," said Drew E. Altman, president and chief executive of the Kaiser Family Foundation, which has been conducting surveys on health policy issues for years. "The law has not been the political plus that the president and Republicans had hoped for."
The White House has cited the Medicare law as one of Mr. Bush's major achievements in domestic policy, showing his ability to fulfill a promise he made in the 2000 campaign. When Democrats controlled Congress, they often promised drug benefits to the elderly, but never delivered, Mr. Bush has said.
The telephone survey was conducted from June 16 to July 21 with 1,223 Medicare beneficiaries: 973 people 65 and older, and 250 people under 65 with disabilities. The margin of sampling error was plus or minus four percentage points.
The survey found overwhelming support for two legislative proposals that have been debated in Congress in recent months: 8 in 10 Medicare beneficiaries said the law should be changed to allow Americans to import lower-cost drugs from Canada and to allow the federal government to negotiate with drug companies to obtain lower prices.
The Democratic presidential nominee, Senator John Kerry, supports both changes. The Bush administration opposes them, saying that imports would pose a danger to public health and that government negotiations could lead to price controls and in any case would not save any more than would competition among private plans.
Beneficiaries were not particularly excited about the drug discount cards that they have been able to use since June. About one-third of beneficiaries in the poll, 34 percent, agreed with the statement that the cards were "worthwhile because they give people on Medicare immediate help before the full prescription drug benefit is available in 2006." But more than half of beneficiaries, 53 percent, agreed with the statement that the cards "are not worth the trouble because they don't do enough to help people with their drug costs, and they are too confusing to use."
Kevin W. Keane, a spokesman for the Department of Health and Human Services, said: "We find some things in the survey that are quite encouraging. Seniors believe the new benefits will be helpful, they want to know more about the benefits, and they do not want them taken away.''
Mr. Keane said it was no surprise that some beneficiaries were confused, because, he said, "Democrats have demagogued the issue and tried to scare seniors away from the new program.''
The chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, Charles E. Grassley, Republican of Iowa, said his experience at 39 town meetings this year suggested that Medicare beneficiaries liked the law better as they learned more about it.
Some Democrats have said the law is so flawed that they want to scrap it and start over. In New Hampshire in January, Mr. Kerry said, "If I'm president, we're going to repeal that phony bill'' and "pass a real Medicare prescription drug benefit'' more helpful to consumers.
My mother-in-law's prescriptions went from $80 to $8 a month. (I know because I pay them more or less). When I told her to thank a Republican she was shocked.
Sweet old brainwashed biddy!!!
LOL
ping
Bwhahahaha! Stupid Republicans, trying to buy off the feckless elderly who insist every damn thing that gets invented is suddenly a birthright to be provided by taxing subsequent generations. They're mad it's not completely free.
The 'Greatest Generation' is the biggest 'Gimme Generation' America's ever had...
"If the Democrats were to propose that all Americans leap off a thousand-foot cliff, moderate Republicans would come up with a compromise proposal that three-quarters of us leap off a 500-foot cliff." -Thomas Sowell
F@#$#$g ingrates.
Wasn't that who this law was supposed to help? How is this a negative? Really what is being said here is that older Americans with moderate to larger incomes want cheaper drugs and so the law is flawed because it did not give it to them.
Egg Sac Lay!!!
That is NOT what we elect them to do!!!
Plus... Kaiser Permanente has become infected with the raging virus of leftism to the max!!!
LOL, that's a great from Sowell.
And then did you shake your head in shame? It sickens me to see the Repubs turn Socialist
I am reminded of what Mark Twain said about expecting gratitude, " If you find a starving dog and make him prosperous, he will not bite you; that is the chief difference between a dog and a man."
What kills me is that all you will hear from the media and pundits is that people are disatisfied. No one will ever hear the part about it only helps the poor.
You got it. An old gal who lives in a three-story mansion in tony Essex Fells, New Jersey, expects her maid, who takes the bus to work because she can't afford a car, to pay more in taxes so that SHE can get free drugs. What's next: a taxpayer-subsidized cruise on the new Queen Mary oceanliner?
This is the "entitlement" mentality at work: once a person gets the idea that she is for some reason "entitled" to something, she doesn't appreciate what she receives; quite the contrary, she resents that (in her eyes) she receives so little. Another problem is that this hypothetical senior's children want her to receive every government benefit allowed, and then some, because they don't want her to spend her own money -- it cuts into the inheritance. Her children don't want to help her, as well, so it's better to force everybody's children to help her, including people whose parents are dead.
The 'Greatest Generation' is the biggest 'Gimme Generation' America's ever had...
They are called greedy geezers for a reason. Quite frankly, I think that our society does too much for the elderly. Most of them are doing perfectly fine, thank you.
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