Bush Defends Troubled Medicare Benefit

[Rose Siding]

CANANDAIGUA, N.Y. -- President Bush on Tuesday defended Medicare's new prescription drug benefit as a good deal for seniors and taxpayers alike but acknowledged that the program was plagued by problems in its early days.

"Anytime Washington passes a new law, sometimes the transition period can be interesting," the president said.
....
Bush spoke in the gymnasium of the Canandaigua Academy, the local public high school in this middle-class, conservative-leaning western New York community. Afterward, he was to visit Ferris Hills at West Lake, a residence for seniors.

Bush encouraged seniors to sign up for the prescription drug benefit.....

"I'm telling you, it's a good opportunity for you," the president said.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/03/14/AR2006031400775.html




"Interesting" transition......a "good opportunity"......

snip>
WASHINGTON — Jim Hill's world is closing in around him as his strength slips away. Until a few months ago, the 80-year-old led an active life, but lately he's been forced to spend much of the day in a hospital bed. Twice he has broken his nose in falls.....

But Hill says what turned him from a retiree involved with church and family to a patient in a wheelchair is not just the disease attacking his nervous system. It's Medicare.
...
Hill's predicament is shared by more than 10,000 Medicare patients nationwide, according to a conservative estimate.

....More fundamentally, {Bush} has proposed automatic, across-the-board cuts when Medicare spending reaches certain specified limits — the first time such cost constraints would be applied to a major benefit program.

If such reductions are imposed, Medicare authorities will have to cut reimbursement rates — as they did with Hill — or stop covering some kinds of treatments. Taken together, the changes could affect virtually all of Medicare's 43 million beneficiaries.

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-medicare28feb28,1,2989658.story?coll=la-headlines-nation

[datadiva]

1. Oh, its interesting all right

Stupid moneygrubber. My husband is 71. I paid more for his meds this month than I used to pay on a paid plan that only cost me 36.00 a year. Now I am paying 27.00 a month. :argh:

[babylonsister]

2. "Was" plagued by problems? Wake up, dimson! nt

[jwirr]

3. I have been cut off of my state program because I am supposed

to have medicare which has not kicked in yet. Pharmacy will not give me drugs for diabetes and heart meds because I cannot pay for them. The Minnesota program to take care of the interim has ended even though the problems have not but of course our stupid repug gov. hasn't noticed that it has not been resolved.

[Vidar]

15. in the same boat, different state.

[leQ]

23. just south of you in iowa, it's not much better

i just thank God i have a pharmacy who lets me charge my scripts. i'll just wait until all the dust settles.

my monthy drug costs are about $1500. the problem i'm running into all the time is there's one thing written on paper, and another thing when you call. then there's always that time when the person you talked to before was wrong, and the person you're talking to now says something completely different.

it's a mess. one BIG GIGANTIC MESS. but then, what else could you expect from republicans.

[msgadget]

4. I don't usually take cheap shots but

does he even understand the damned thing? Or that not demanding to negotiate price with big pharma (as Wally World does for, say, bloomers) is morally offensive and fiscally irresponsible?

[WinkyDink]

12. Oh, the Psychopath-in-Chief understands, all right. $$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$

$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$$.

[Jane Austin]

5. Oh, this is SWEET!

"A good deal for seniors and taxpayers"

:rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl: :rofl:

This needs to be spread far and wide . . . just in case anyone still thinks the idiot-son has any understanding of any policies anywhere.

Did anyone in his audience maintain a straight face?

[Norquist Nemesis]

6. Bush: "This program's doing a heckuva job!" n/t

[oneold1-4u]

7. Went through several

And that is difficult without having gone to Harvard Law or any!
I don't wish to sign up to pay any insurance because of a threatened penalty! That in itself should be considered a crime against the government and insurance companies!
Signing up for the one, with least cost, (only to avoid penalty) would make me pay for that, and it won't cover my one Rx (not in their formulary) so it will be better for me as long I can to just pay for Rx, or go without and soon be back under state and fed aid completely. When I have to give up part time-min-wage, care position, (possibly soon)I will be having knee and back surgery and all will be paid by state and federal because SS is far under poverty level!

[lumpy]

16. I didn't sign up for the GD program.

So far I can afford to pay out of pocket for my meds. Don't know what the future will bring but I will rely on providence I guess.

[Mel]

8. Rat Bastards!

Jim Hill gets to suffer and die in America because of these Rat Greedy Bastards.
So, do you think a Doctor would just give me a morphine drip so I can go if I get like Jim? One cost. One fee. I can sell something to pay for it or maybe not eat for a week. Hell we treat our pets better than this! What a freaking disgrace shame shame shame!!!

One bright side there are a lot of baby boomer's that are on their way to getting old and I seriously doubt they are going to put up with this bs that Jim Hill is getting. I as a matter of fact am sending this article to my Senators and my Congressman right now! To find out what the hell they intend to do for Jim Hill and others in his situation. Jim is to sick to do it so I will for him I hope others will too.
10,000 people that's 7,000 more than died on 9-11 that can't get treatment in the United States of Amerika. :wtf: What the Freak?

[Rose Siding]

9. Oh crap! They changed the article- He called medicare "the new deal"

to SENIORS. Do you suppose they noticed?

snip>
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."

[bluedog]

10. news articles out of Rochester........NY

http://www.democratandchronicle.com/apps/pbcs.dll/section?Category=NEWS07

[Rose Siding]

13. That's a great feed

I can't usually find one local to his events. How'd you do that?

[bluedog]

25. use to live in that area......

[chopper]

11. 'interesting'?

seniors not being able to afford their prescriptions isn't 'interesting.' it's pathetic that our country is in this shape.

[Gelliebeans]

14. This may very well be my grandmother

After being diagnosed with breast cancer five years ago, she had a double mastectomy. She then had a recurring skin cancer develop over the site of the mastectomy so her doctors put her on a drug therapy for stubborn cancers.
She was doing fine keeping the cancer at bay and paying her medical bills which averaged about 150.00 a month (that is for infusion therapy not medications that one would pick up at your neighborhood pharmacy).

January 2006-She now has been told that she will have to pay out of pocket cost of 740.00 per month for her infusions. HERE IS THE KICKER SHE ONLY GETS 926.00 per month from social security. :grr:

If she can't get the pharmaceutical companies to help with the cost of the meds, she will likely have to sell her house (her only asset) in order to afford those medication costs.
My family is trying to figure out a way for our family to pool our money so Grandma can keep her house and independence while living out her years in dignity. She is 81, so going back to work isn't an option.
These bastards make me sick. My mother who is recently retired and on a fixed income spends her days groveling to the pharmaceutical companies in hopes of getting assistance for Grandma's medications.


Good opportunity????????? For who george??????? Ya Asshole.

[Rainscents]

24. Have you check into AARP-RX plan?

My understanding is, this plan is the best out of all of them.

And let me add... Anything Bush and republican comes up with always "SUCKS!"

[Gelliebeans]

26. I believe my mother

has spoken to AARP-RX but I don't know whether Grandma fits their criteria she has asked for a packet of information and an application. Thanks for the suggestion though. I think the major problem with the Plan D is that it may help seniors on a particular medicine but does nothing if your medicine isn't on their list. Most patients on newer drugs for cancers will not benefit from medicare part D. You are absolutely correct what they have come up with sucks because the big winners are pharmaceutical companies.

[flamingyouth]

17. kick

[Beall]

18. Bush Admits Rocky Start to Drug Plan

Bush is in NY this week pushing the Part D plan. What do you think? Do you think this process will finally start to get easier for the elderly?

New York Times - Bush Admits Rocky Start to Drug Plan

By DAVID E. SANGER

CANANDAIGUA, N.Y., March 14 — President Bush tried on Tuesday to tamp down complaints by retirees and pharmacists about the start of the Medicare prescription drug benefit, acknowledging that problems plagued its early days.

In an echo of speeches conceding errors in the responses to Hurricane Katrina and the Iraq reconstruction, and in which he insisted that the problems were being resolved, Mr. Bush told a group of pharmacists and Medicare participants here that he had expected that the program would have a rocky start.

"Any time Washington passes a new law, sometimes the transition period can be interesting," the president said.

That was something of an understatement. The White House was flooded with complaints about retirees who could not obtain their drugs at the promised discount, and independent pharmacists from Texas complained in recent days to Karl Rove, the president's deputy chief of staff and political strategist, that they had been forced to give out millions of dollars of prescription drugs and had not been reimbursed.

Mr. Rove was on the trip to this city, not far from Rochester, which Mr. Bush hailed as an example of a place that had straightened out the problems. He noted several programs were available to explain Medicare options.

"Take a look," Mr. Bush said to a group with many retirees. "One of the reasons I have come is to ask people who are eligible for Medicare just to explore the options."

The president also traveled here to sidestep a potential landmine. Democrats, who voted overwhelmingly against the drug program and have called it a giveaway to drug companies, hope to point to the troubles in enrolling beneficiaries in November.

Mr. Bush took with him Dr. Mark B. McClellan, administrator of the Federal Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services, who has been working to resolve the troubles that many patients have encountered. "We saw some long wait times," Dr. McClellan said.

Calls to 1-800-MEDICARE (1-800-633-4227) had just a few minutes of waiting, he said. White House officials said the availability of generic drugs had lowered the projected cost of the program, which is run by private health plans subsidized by Medicare.

[petepillow]

19. hey whaddya know. too little too late. it's almost like a pattern.

[oneold1-4u]

20. Anyone who thinks it is even "good"

Will soon realize they bought a program "insurance" that can't be canceled and will soon cost a lot more than their Rx's, alone, ever could!
The end of the plan is to just let people DIE!

[cliss]

21. NOW, compare this with Bush standing up there,

about 2 years ago. He's grandstanding. He's blabbing away about the NEW Medicare plan, which will be wonderful. Boasting, using his hand in a sweeping gesture to show how great it will all be.

Just a mere 2 years later, the truth is exploding in Americans' faces what's been done to them.

But hey, he could go out on a speaking tour.....just as soon as he finishes his speaking tour about Iraq.

[BiggJawn]

22. That's like saying the "Titanic" had "some trouble" on her maiden voyage.

sheesh...

[Rex]

27. Anytimes...sometimes...

There he goes again with that idiot Repuke logic. What a moran.