[grania]

I'm a senior with Medicare Part A and disagree with most of my peers. Medicare Part A should be the only part there is. It's the insurance we paid into the system for. It was designed so seniors would not be impoverished by a hospital visit.

Medicare Part B and Part D, the pharmaceutical program, should not be part of the federal program. They should be private sector insurance.

It was GWB who force-fed us Medicare Part D. What's happened? Increased pharmaceutical expenses, copays many recipients can hardly afford, over-prescribing of drugs, and many seniors walking around in a drug-induced zombie state.

[TAP ONLINE]

Medicare advantage is not Part D. Part D is only for drugs. Advantage is hospitals, doctors, and can include drugs.

[Attention Surplus Disorder]

The rub comes when a company is deciding to invest $50-$75 or $100 million in a new drug.

Those numbers are light by a factor of ten.

[<1/1,000,000th%]

What???

You can’t bring a new drug to market for less than $1 billion. It typically costs over $2 billion. Government price-fixing is why companies are unloading their drug operations.

[TomGuy]

This statement is somewhat confusing:

The program is a voluntary add-on to a senior's Medicare coverage, where seniors pay a premium and deductibles for one of the more than 1,500 private sector drug insurance plans.

Is "The program" referring to Part D? If so, it is not voluntary. It is mandatory. Anyone not signing up for an approved drug plan is fined. The fine increases each year of non-compliance. When one does enrol in a prescription drug plan later, the cumulative fine is assessed and added monthly to the cost of the drug plan.

If the statement means that drug plans are voluntary with some Medicare Advantage plans, that is technically true, but not signing up for a drug plan -- whether part of an approved Medicare plan or a separate standalone plan -- still result in an accumulating fine.

[bert]

Obama has a death wish