I encourage all to read this article carefully, especially the 10th paragraph, where the Kaiser foundation permits one to calculate their cost benefit analysis under the proposed bill (which stinks):
Article Last Updated: Sunday, November 23, 2003 - 7:25:08 AM PST
Not much of a benefit
THE latest version of the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of 2003 was announced last weekend in Washington by the Medicare conference committee.
Supporters from organizations such as AARP see it as a compromise that would provide coverage to people with low incomes and relief to those with high drug costs.
However, a poll last week by Hart Research showed that 65 percent of AARP members want Congress to go back to the drawing board. Many members of Congress already have canceled their membership in AARP, and some grassroots organizations such as Moveon.org advocate mass membership cancellations.
Opponents, such as the Alliance for Retired Americans, are mobilizing their members to take action. Rep. Nancy Pelosi, D-San Francisco, called the overhaul "a cruel hoax that dismantles Medicare and does not provide seniors an affordable, defined, guaranteed Medicare prescription benefit."
This proposed largest overhaul in Medicare's history would have a huge impact on current beneficiaries and baby boomers for years to come. The administration is aiming for quick passage. Advocacy organizations have asked Congress to give consumers adequate time to study the roughly 1,000-page proposal.
According to a Consumers Union analysis, the proposal "not only falls embarrassingly short of giving seniors a real drug benefit, it likely will threaten Medicare's viability." The analysis finds:
The funds set aside for the drug benefit cover only 22 percent of expected costs, leaving consumers to pay the rest of the bill.
The plan takes a big step toward unregulated privatization by requiring competition between private health plans and Medicare while subsidizing the private health plans and allowing them to select the healthiest beneficiaries.
Private benefit managers determine which drugs are included in private plans. These decisions will have no transparency, methodology or public accountability.
The plan, which would not take effect until 2006, actually prohibits the government from negotiating deep prescription drug discounts for consumers. If drug costs continue their historical rates of increase, the average Medicare recipient paying $2,318 in 2003 without coverage will pay $2,911 out-of-pocket in 2007 with coverage. To calculate your drug costs under the plan, visit the Kaiser Family Foundation Web site at www.kaisernetwork.org/static/kncalc.cfm
Information provided by Rep. Pete Stark's office warns his East Bay constituents that:
The bill, if passed, will leave 2 to 3 million retirees without employer-provided prescription drug coverage; will leave up to 6 million of the poorest Medicare beneficiaries with less drug coverage than they have now; and will saddle millions of seniors with rising Medicare premiums if they refuse to join an HMO.
A cost containment provision would create a so-called "crisis" when an arbitrary cap on general revenue funding is reached, which would be used to advance radical cuts to the program, including benefit cuts.
Drug importation would be permitted only from Canada, and only if the U.S. Health and Human Services Secretary certifies that no safety risk exists.
Hopefully, Congress has not taken a vote before publication of this column and before you have had an opportunity to make your opinion known to legislators.
Visit the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities' Web site at www.cbpp.org; call your local Congressional office; contact AARP, www.aarp.org or (800) 424-3410; or the Alliance for Retired Americans, www.retiredamericans.org, (888) 373-6497.
Sandra J. Cohen, R.N., and Roger Cormier are consultants who help East Bay families plan and coordinate care of an older relative at home or in a care facility. Reach them at (510) 652-3377 or (925) 945-8855 or e-mail
go@eldercaremanagers.com or visit www.ElderCareManagers.com