The Daily Background
| Mega-Medicare-Roundup
by Arlen Parsa
For several days, the blogs have been buzzing about the White House’s new Medicare plan. The idea is that it’s supposed to save money by replacing the regular Medicare plan with dozens and dozens and dozens of plans, all of which are tailor fitted to one particular or another particular medical condition. Senior citizens are expected to know which one is right for them and choose it themselves. In addition, nobody’s allowed to help them make their decision or make recommendations.
Well, nobody except for phone and internet sources provided by the government. What a great idea. Place a majority of the information needed to make a choice on a very complicated decision for a large group of seniors– on the internet. Which most of them don’t either have access to, or even know how to use. Great idea. I know my grandparents are entirely bewildered at least. Let’s do a quick check-in with AP before we continue:
The Medicare drug program that was supposed to win political points for Republicans has exploded in their faces as this election year has begun. It’s a particularly vexing problem for the GOP, since older Americans are such active voters and no one seeking office wants to see them angry.
Since the Bush administration’s prescription medicine program began on Jan. 1, tens of thousands of elderly people have been unable to get medicines promised by the government. Some 20 states have had to jump in to help them.
[…]
Sen. Edward M. Kennedy [himself a senior] of Massachusetts cited a “systemwide failure” that he said “puts the health of our frailest citizens at great risk.”
Pretty bad. In addition, WaPo reports on states being forced to step in and help seniors where the Medicare Plan failed. So what are the blogs saying? Here’s our Mega-Medicare-Roundup:
- Firedoglake addresses the issue of government waste.
- CarpetBagger Report calls the President’s Medicare Plan his “Worst Domestic Policy Ever.”
- AMERICAblog notes many of the problems that the new Medicare program is seeing.
- ThinkProgress tells us about the White House’s new Medicare public relations campaign.
- CrooksandLiars has a report about who’s attacking the new Medicare Plan (think Novak).
- MedBillAdvisor Blog points to an article about pharmacists reaction to the plan.
- Pesky’ Apostrophe asks somebody to please, please save my grandma.
Thanks for the link as well as high-lighting the ongoing challenges associated with Medicare Part D. Sadly, there is never an easy solution to America’s healthcare finance crisis… but the onion (poor analogy for “smelly” and many layers) has got to be cut and peeled in order to address the multitude of interwoven issues.
- christopher