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Fix the Medicare prescription drug law now
By U.S. Senator John F. Kerry (Dem.)
With much pomp and circumstance, President Bush signed into law a new prescription drug benefit for Medicare in 2003. Yet as seniors began to understand what was really in the bill, the only confetti they were throwing were the shredded remains of their membership cards to the powerful lobbyists that helped craft the bill. Seniors know a bad deal when they see it, and I stand with them in saying that this new Medicare law is fatally flawed. We must go back to the drawing board while there is still time.
Medicare was enacted 40 years ago as a promise to the American people that, in exchange for their years of hard work and service to our country, their health care would be protected in their golden years. America’s seniors deserve a comprehensive and affordable health care system with a guaranteed prescription drug benefit. That is not what they got in this bill.
The new Medicare prescription drug law does more harm than good for the Medicare program and the seniors it serves. Seniors know this bill provides the skimpiest of benefits with holes in coverage and complex rules. It has wide gaps in coverage, forces seniors into HMO-style plans, does not include price controls, and eventually may lead to the privatization of Medicare.
But there is still time to act. The prescription drug benefit package promised in this 2003 law actually does not go into effect until January 2006 – giving us an entire year to get it right. What must be done?
If Republicans in Congress are unwilling to scrap the existing law all together and begin anew, we must at least perform some major surgery to the current law. To begin, we must:
· Make the benefit comprehensive by closing the so-called donut hole that charges seniors premiums even after their benefits shut down.
· Restrain double-digit drug price increases and lower out-of-pocket costs for seniors by allowing the federal government to use its bulk purchasing power to negotiate volume discounts on behalf of all beneficiaries.
· Allow for the safe reimportation of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada and other industrialized countries.
· Cancel the unprecedented $12 billion slush fund to entice private insurance companies to participate in Medicare. If private companies are unwilling to compete for customers to provide the coverage, the federal government should stand ready to offer a plan as a part of its Medicare package. We can use this money to invest in a better benefit for our seniors.
· Improve the protections for retiree benefits. Millions of seniors are projected to lose their gold-plated retiree prescription drug plan and be forced into a lesser benefit under the Medicare plan. This is wrong and we must prevent it from happening.
Affordable health care is not a privilege for the elected, the connected, and the wealthy; it should be a right afforded to all Americans regardless of background or social standing. The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 soundly rejects this principle, but by undertaking some serious reforms, we can begin to make the American health care system for seniors look much more like what the doctor would order.