State Officials Criticize Medicare Benefit Wording

[Rose Siding]

WASHINGTON, Nov. 6 - The nation's insurance commissioners say the federal Medicare agency has made misleading statements about the new drug benefit in an effort to persuade people to sign up.

The National Association of Insurance Commissioners, which represents insurance regulators in all 50 states, registered its concern in a letter to the agency. State officials elaborated on their concerns in recent interviews.

If private insurers made such statements about their products, the association said, state officials would investigate their marketing practices for possible violation of consumer protection laws.

Since President Bush signed the Medicare law on Dec. 8, 2003, he has portrayed it as a boon to the elderly, "the greatest improvement in senior health care since Medicare was enacted in 1965.''

The insurance commissioners objected to a proposed federal rule requiring insurers to tell policyholders that the Medicare drug benefit provided "greater value'' than did the drug coverage available to people with private Medigap insurance. Similar statements appear on the Web site of the Department of Health and Human Services.

http://nytimes.com/2004/11/07/politics/07insure.html

Why do pre-911-thinking insurance commissioners hate America?

[Nicholas_J]

1. Of course they are trying to mislead people

Right now, less than ten percent of all those elegible for the "Medicare Prescuiption cards" have signed up for them. This bodes very poorly for the possiblity that any more will sign up for the full plan in 2006, and is considered something that will have disastrous effects from the mid term election in 2006. While Democrats can be blamed for this initially, remindin people that the Republicans pulled a fast one in getting the Medicare Prescription plan passed will easily allow the blame for the passage of such a poor plan to roll off the back od democrats and fall squarely onto the Republicans who held the vote opened for hours in order to pack the house for the vote, while Democrats were kept out of the planning of the act to begin with. Since the benefit comes into effect a few months before the mid term elections, a failure to get a large percentage of m,edicare recipients to participate will be one of the largest issues in the election. We can expect the voters to very angrily unseat a good number of the Republicans who took part in this sham legislation.

[MSgt213]

2. Of course no one hears about all this until after the election. Sweet

[Erika]

3. Bush Turning Our Country into A Banana Republic

and it goes on.