Fox Special Report had a report of a survey that shows that most people who are on this new program like it.
My father-in-law said it saved him a lot of money on medications.
Some of the older folks in the U.S. are much like those welfare people that were in New Orleans during it's flood. They would rather die waiting for someone else to help them than to try to save themselves.
My 98 year-old mother is in a nursing home and her monthly medication bill was averaging about $300 per month. I know this because I have been handling all her bills for the last 2 years. She is not on Medicaid, and wasn't on any Health Insurance plan that had a drug benefit.
I signed her up for the Medicare Part D (Drug Benefit) in January. I must say the process was entirely painless, and I didn't have any problems once I found out which "Drug Benefit Plan" her pharmacy supported. I chose the AARP plan, and I was able to sign-up on-line in about 10 minutes of work! We just got the first 'bill" under the plan. The co-payment charges was $53 and the monthly insurance premium is $30 for a total monthly "cost" of $83. Anyway you cut it, she is "saving" money!
From my datapoint of one, all the horror stories being printed are probably B.S. or self-generated. There was absolutely NOTHING negative in the sign-up process nor the program to date! IT WAS AS EASY AS GRINNING!!
The people having problems with this probably have problems with voting. No matter how simple you make things, somebody will not "understand".
Just judging from the patter in the local barbershop, most of the seniors in this area of Florida believe that there is little, if anything, in this program for them. They believe that it represents a sweet deal for Big Pharma, but not for them.
I don't know enough about it to comment one way or the other. But it is pretty obvious that it is a PR disaster for the GOP in this area of this swing state.
Why do we let millionaire elected officals decide what is best for the voters when they are getting the best medical service that the tax payers can afford for them?
Like FDR`s Social Security program and LBJ`s Medicare program, GWB`s new trillion dollar Prescription Drug Program is more liberal social engineering. Plain and simple. Another bureaucratic blunder. We don't need more government, we need less government. Limited government is a key part of the conservative agenda. More expansion of government is not part of any conservative policy.
Signed up and they arranged for the payment to be taken from my social security check.
You can go to the Humana website, the number is prominently posted and a real person answers the phone too!
As of now, the deadline for signing up in May,2006.
Get it done if you don't have a prescription plan from a pension or former company.
I am on Medicare and Medicaid. It took a month for the drug plan to be effective, but that is my only complaint. My 8 prescriptions with a retail of about $700 cost me $22 this month.
"They's givin' away free stuff!"
Dubya has been channelling Lyndon Johnson again.