Posted on 03/14/2006 3:18:57 PM PST by kenth
CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. - President Bush campaigned Tuesday to boost the troubled new Medicare drug program that is the subject of a fierce election-year debate between Democrats and Republicans.
Bush pleaded with older Americans — a key voting block, particularly in midterm congressional elections — to look positively on the new benefit. Under the program, the government subsidizes medication costs for the elderly and disabled through plans created by private insurers.
In effect since January, it has been under fire from Democrats as too confusing for seniors with its numerous plans and coverage gaps — and from some conservative Republicans as an overly costly expansion of government.
But Bush said seniors, particularly those on the lower end of the income scale, should at least explore the options and consider enrolling before a May 15 deadline ushers in higher premiums.
"I think you're going to like what you see," the president said from a public high school gym in this conservative-leaning western New York community. "The key is saving a little money in retirement."
During a 35-minute discussion with a panel assembled by the White House, Bush acknowledged problems early on, when errors left many temporarily without coverage.
But he said the program is providing 50 percent reductions in drug costs for the average elderly patient, and significantly higher savings for lower-income seniors. And he said the introduction of choice — though bewildering at first — is also helping the 26 million who have enrolled so far to benefit from higher quality.
Bush also argued the program is proving less expensive than anticipated. Federal spending on the drug benefit will be 20 percent lower in 2006 than was estimated last summer, due to competition and the wider availability of generic drugs, according to the White House.
"It's working," Bush said. "It makes a lot of sense."
Later, Bush visited Ferris Hills at West Lake, a seniors residence. He was supposed to be there during a Medicare education session for residents, but weather forced a schedule rearrangement that had him arriving about 90 minutes late, after the program was completed. So Bush was left briefly greeting a few seniors who waited for him in common rooms.
He perhaps unwittingly used language recalling a famous Democratic anti-poverty initiative, President Franklin D. Roosevelt's New Deal of the 1930s.
"Everybody explaining Medicare to you — the new deal?" Bush asked a crowd in one room. "I hope so. It's worth looking at."
Later Tuesday, back at the White House, the president was also meeting with representatives from groups that have been holding education and enrollment sessions around the country.
It was the first of two straight days Bush was devoting to the program. On Wednesday, he is delivering a Medicare speech at an assisted living facility in Silver Spring, Md., a Washington suburb.
The renewed presidential attention reflects the issue's high stakes in a year when most of Congress is up for re-election and Bush wants to help his party retain control of both chambers.
"The Medicare drug program has been a nightmare for America's seniors and is clear evidence of the Bush administration's shocking incompetence," Sen. Edward M. Kennedy (news, bio, voting record), D-Mass., said.
Democrats favored benefits provided directly by the government rather than through private companies and hope to make the program a liability for Republicans. Americans United, a group with close ties to congressional Democrats, intends to use polling, television advertisements and public events to campaign against the benefit.
While in New York, Bush met Jason McElwain, the autistic basketball team manager who drew national cheers by scoring 20 points in four minutes for his suburban Rochester high school team. The president also met relatives of five U.S. soldiers killed in Iraq and elsewhere. While with the family of Jason Dunham, killed in April 2004 in Iraq, the president signed a bill naming a nearby post office for the Marine corporal.
After I got a grasp on it, I just called the guy who handles my mother's Medigap stuff and he came out here and we bought a plan from him.
Prescription Solutions from PacifiCare. I just decided since they were all about the same, I'd stick with the company she's been with for years.
It was daunting though....but I'm ready when it's my turn!
People are actually coming onto Free Republic and posting kudos for the new Medicare PDP. They don't seem to understand, this is not a conservative policy. It is 1960`s liberalism, advanced under the guise of big government Republicanism. And guess who is paying for the PDP?
Now you're just being hysterical.
;-)
I simply have a problem with MY money paying for a stranger's drugs.
The democrats have worked non-stop since this passed to convince everybody how bad it was, hoping to get seniors to complain before it took effect, like they did on a previous plan.
They knew that if the law actually went into effect, they would lose. If the Democrats actually thought this law would make the seniors mad, they would have complained QUIETLY until after it took effect, and then ridden the wave of outrage.
Just about the only outrage regarding the program itself is coming from people who haven't signed up yet.
And I love how the democrats keep saying the program is too complicated, that poor old people can't figure it out. In other words, they are calling them stupid.
The republicans complain about the costs, that is a real problem, but the old people getting cheap drugs won't care about that.
lol
That's because they're not conservatives.
Which always raises the question: what are they doing on a conservative site operated for conservatives?
Good question.
Dubya has been channelling Lyndon Johnson again.
No, but prices are temporarily lower so that they can attempt to keep people from signing up. Prices will go back up once government continues to be involved. It may seem nice now, but it won't last. Because government will mandate more and more and prices will go back up. Eventually, they'll surpass the price that you had before you signed up for the prescription drug plan.
As prices go up on medicine, so will the cost of the program. It's a given. You won't be able to stop it.
Checkups can make the difference between a minor adjustment or a major repair.
Yes I do preventive maintenance on MY car i dont hire a band of armed thugs to take money from my neighbors and force them to give it to me to do maintenance on my car and everyones car on my block. I take care of things in my life with my money you know the conservative thing to do but i guess you wouldnt know anything about that since you think its better for the feds to take care of your family then it is for you to take care of them and btw where you oneof the thousands of freepers that where on here bitching like crazy about how communist and fascist hillary health care was when she proposed that because she didnt have a big red R on the chest of her blue tights when she proposed it?
I basically agree with your post. Obviously PresBush and many FReepers seem to think that a trillion drug program, subsidized by the federal government is the way to go. Call it liberal socialism or big governemnt Republicanism, either way the taxpayers are being screwed once again. The federal government doesn't exist to supply prescription drugs, medical healthcare or retirement programs for America's seniors. Period. We live in a constitutional republic based on limited government. What we have today is more of the same cradle to grave liberalism, that advances the social engineering of people's lives. Get the federal government out of peoples lives.
I hate this program. But that doesn't mean it is a "bad" program. I think it greatly benefits those it is meant to benefit.
So long as the phrase "Grandma had to give up her {X} to pay for medical treatment" is seen by the majority of americans as a bad thing, there is no incentive possible to keep us from socialized medicine. Because giving up "X" is exactly what would provide incentives for elderly to save for thier own care.
You can't have it both ways. As a conservative I view this PDP the same way I view Social Security and Medicare. They're all "bad" programs. Period. All three are welfare entitlements that will continue to expand the federal bureaucracy. They have nothing to do with conservatism and limited government. Free Republic exists to advance conservatism and limited government, not theb other way around.
I hate the Yankees. But they are a good team.
The PDP is part of the "nanny state" mentality/mindset. Its social engineering. This has nothing to do with a conservative policy agenda of limited government. Whether its SS, Medicare or the PDP, all three are the part of the government largesse that Free Republic is working to roll back. People who support any of the big three welfare entitlement programs, is not a conservative. I'd call them liberals.
This thread was a discussion about whether the program was meeting its goals. My point was that the program WAS doing what it was intended to do.
A previous post I felt misrepresented my defense of the program's operation as aquiescense to it's existance, and I was simply trying to disavow such a link.
I could be against the war in Iraq, and still defend HOW the war was being fought. Is that a better analogy?
Conservatives would say, the program should not exist. Period. You're digging yourself into a deeper hole. You've been here long enough to know that parsing your remarks, is a tactic that liberals use. Not conservatives. Stay away from the analogies, they don't work well.
I'm not parsing my remarks, I'm explaining your misinterpretation of them.
I'm not in a hole, nor am I digging. Nothing you've said would suggest that the program isn't meeting it's objective -- you simply reject the idea that we should try to meet that objective. I agree with you on that point.
I tried analogies becausce you didn't seem to understand the point directly, and I find that most people who can't understand something directly can be made to understand a point if you put it in terms that are within their life experiences.
I don't ask you to agree with my point, I'm just trying to make sure you understand the point. If you don't understand the point, your opinion of it is meaningless to me, because your opinion would be based on something OTHER than the point.
If you were able to show an understanding of the point, then I would understand your opinion of it. But in fact I don't think we differ in our opinion, just that you misinterpreted my statements because you didn't understand what I was saying and so you think despite my corrections that I wanted this program, or think it is a good idea.
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