Regime Change Needed

The following post was originally posted a couple of days ago, but it was removed and has not reappeared so I am reposting it.

Today has been a sad, frustrating one for me. Working with retirees who are frustrated, worried, and confused with the pressure being placed on them to choose a prescription drug plan through the new Medicare Part D.

Let me tell you what I’m thinking, Brothers and Sisters. What the Bush administration has done to our retirees is nothing short of cruel. The Medicare Prescription Drug Program being forced onto seniors has them scared and frustrated. The plans are so complicated, misleading and hard to understand and there are so many variables to consider that seniors are being forced to make decisions that many aren’t capable of making.

Do people become so educated and powerful that they lose all sense of empathy? Do our legislators really believe that they’ve done a good thing for seniors? While they try so hard to portray themselves as being the party with “family values”, they have forgotten the commandment, “honor your Father and your Mother”?

Medicare has been such a wonderful, reliable program for seniors. Everyone liked it, and it had such low overhead. If the prescription drug program was simply made a part of Medicare, with all seniors paying the same premium and having the same coverage, all would have accepted it and all would be fine. But no, the administration had to privatize it. Just like they tried to do with Social Security. They just had to give billions to their Corporate buddies in the pharmaceutical industry and screw the retirees. Plus, this darned Part D won’t do anything to keep the cost of drugs down. What Bush and his cronies are trying to do is take a government program that they have never liked, run it into the ground and make it so costly that they will eventually, finally get rid of it.

U.S. Senators have an opportunity to at least give seniors a little more time to make their decision without being penalized by passing the Medicare Informed Choice Ammendment to the tax reconciliation bill. This would extend the initial enrollment period for Medicare Part D from May 15, 2006 to the end of 2006. This would delay the late enrollment penalty and give beneficiaries more time to make the best possible decision. The amendment would also give beneficiaries the opportunity to make a one-time change in plan enrollment to correct initial mistakes choosing a plan during the first year of implementation.

We need to forget about changing regimes in other parts of the world and concentrate on regime change right here in our own country.