Government Sued Over Medicare Drug Benefit

[leftchick]

WASHINGTON - The Bush administration was accused in a lawsuit Wednesday of failing to ensure that poor people were enrolled properly in Medicare's new prescription drug benefit.

As a result, these beneficiaries cannot get the medicine they need, according to the suit by a group of older people and advocacy groups.

They charge that Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt failed to make sure that many of the poorest people eligible for the benefit signed up for private insurance plans as Congress had required.

A spokesman for the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services said the problems cited occurred when the program got under way in January.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20060426/ap_on_go_pr_wh/medicare_lawsuit_1

[salin]

1. pushing a policy written by industry

and pushed through quickly without time for serious policy wonks to project unintended consequences (?), disallowing the opportunity to recraft the policy to address some of those consequences - ALWAYS results in public policies with potentially disasterous results.

Glad this suit is being filed. This program hurts as many, or more, than it helps.

[rodeodance]

2. sad commentary, when people have to waste money sueing the Feds.

[DELUSIONAL]

3. This new program wasn't done on a pilot project first -- was it?

Before dumping this new scheme seems like a least a couple of geographical areas should have been chosen to run a pilot project. My bet is that all of the problems we've been reading about would have been discovered and the whole new scheme would quietly terminated.

But then the bushie gang seems to choose the worst option and then they stick to that decision.

[oneold1-4u]

4. When it's over-

The government should have to reimburse all the millions that the people have been conned into paying insurance companies for the most worthless plan of Rx coverage ever thought of! The insurance companies will never give back a dime! They are already refusing to pay for thousands of common drugs that people are and have been using to remain alive! If it is not generic it will cost more for it and the premium if they allow it at all!