More info on the Medicare Drug (lack of) Benefit

There's a lot of good info in the article cited below on the inadequacies of the Medicare Part D Drug Program. It's more proof that if we leave it up to the pols in DC (or Springfield), the only solutions we'll get to our health crisis will be ones that benefit insurance companies and big pharma. Public servants indeed.

I'm only listing a few interesting quotes from it. Click the headline to read the whole thing, including an interesting story about how and why the parents of Mike Leavitt, head of the Dept. of Health and Human Services, dropped out of the plan.

Dr. Peter Rost: Winners and Losers in the Medicare Drug Lottery
(We the People, vs. Them the Large Insurance and Drug Companies)

According to the most recent Washington Post/ABC News Poll, 86% of seniors currently take prescription drugs on a regular basis, but only 38% have signed up for the Medicare prescription drug program. This is a glaring disparity in numbers. 44% thought the cost was too high and more Americans disapprove of the program, 45%, than approve, 41% (14% had no opinion). ...

The Washington Post states that "8 million -- and as many as 14 million by some estimates" eligible Americans have not signed up for the drug program. ...

The New York Times writes, "At least two dozen states have taken emergency action to help low-income people who could not get their medications under the program, which began Jan. 1. States are spending millions of dollars a day in such assistance."

And the Los Angeles Times claims that "a review by the Senior Action Network, a grass-roots advocacy group in San Francisco, found that Costco's prices on the top 100 drugs used by Medicare beat prices of all 48 plans in California in more than half the cases."

According to the Wall Street Journal, the "early winners" include large health insurers, who "have snagged roughly 15 million new customers and healthy government subsidies" under the program. The WSJ concludes, "By far, the biggest winner in the race to sign up seniors is UnitedHealth Group Inc., which has used an alliance with AARP to help it grab more than 3.9 million new customers"