| The effects of the much-hyped Republican scheme to outsourse the Medicare Drug Plan to for-profit insurance companies have been somewhat less stellar than predicted by its Republican creators. The choice is not between government control versus individual control of health care. The choice is between government control versus corporate control. |
| The new prescription drug plan accomplishes two things. One, it prevents the government from negotiating with the big pharmaceutical companies for lower drug prices. Two, it puts the actual purchasing power in the hands of many private insurance companies instead of a few payers (or a single payer.) This reduces the bargaining power that each company has. The result is unfettered price-gouging by the drug companies at the expense of American taxpayers. Mission accomplished.
Medicaid recipients were randomly assigned to a private drug plan, with the option to switch to another if they were dissatisfied. Along the way, as data bounced from one bureaucracy and set of computers to the next, some people's names dropped out of the system. Others, though listed as enrolled, were not earmarked as they should have been for the lowest level of co-payments. Thus many poor people found that when they showed up at the pharmacy they either were denied coverage or were asked to pay hundreds of dollars in deductibles or co-payments. Pharmacists who tried to call the private drug plans could seldom get through. And some plans improperly refused to approve drugs during the transition as they were required to. Nobody knows how many people were affected, but officials acknowledge it may be in the tens of thousands. California alone says that some 200,000 of its one million Medicaid patients had trouble getting medications during the switchover, an astonishing error rate. More than 20 states stepped in to guarantee drug coverage until the glitches are resolved. They had little choice, given the potentially catastrophic consequences for people who depend on their medicines to keep mental illness at bay, pain at tolerable levels and diabetes or other ailments under control. Source: "The Medicare Drug Mess" - NY Times - January 22, 2006 With tens of thousands of people unable to get medicines promised by Medicare, the Bush administration has told insurers that they must provide a 30-day supply of any drug that a beneficiary was previously taking, and it said that poor people must not be charged more than $5 for a covered drug. The actions came after several states declared public health emergencies, and many states announced that they would step in to pay for prescriptions that should have been covered by the federal Medicare program. Republicans have joined Democrats in asserting that the federal government botched the beginning of the prescription drug program, which started on Jan. 1 [2006]. Since the program began on Jan. 1, many low-income people have left pharmacies empty-handed after being told they would have to pay co-payments of $100, $250 or more. Gov. Mike Huckabee of Arkansas, a Republican who is chairman of the National Governors Association, declared a public health emergency. In Wisconsin, Gov. James E. Doyle, a Democrat, said: "It is outrageous how the federal government has mishandled this program and put thousands of lives at risk. As an emergency measure, the state will step in to ensure that no seniors go without lifesaving medicines." Source: "President Tells Insurers to Aid Ailing Medicare Drug Plan" By ROBERT PEAR - NY Times - January 16, 2006 The Medicare and Medicaid programs devote a much smaller percentage of their budgets to administrative costs than do the insurance companies. This doesn't even include the vast sums insurance companies devote to marketing. All of this money is extracted from the health care system and provides no treatment at all for the sick and injured. Health care is ALREADY being rationed under the current system. In places where tort reform has passed, health insurance rates for consumers have not gone down. Damage awards paid to injured patients constitute a small fraction of the exploding cost of health care. Most of the increase in the cost of health care is attributable to price gouging by the pharmaceutical industry. |
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