Re-examining Medicare --- NYT analysis calls Bush's plan -Deform

[Emillereid]

Since its inception in 1965, Medicare has improved the health of the elderly while playing an outsize role in shaping the delivery of health care for all Americans.


This article begins a series that will examine efforts to overhaul Medicare and ways that rules of the program influence the economics and practice of medicine.


Some Successful Models Ignored as Congress Works on Drug Bill



By ROBERT PEAR and WALT BOGDANICH



By most measures, the Department of Veterans Affairs has solved the puzzle of making prescription drugs affordable for at least one big group of Americans without wrecking the federal budget.

Wielding its power as one of the largest purchasers of medications in the United States, the V.A. has made it possible for millions of veterans to pay just $7 for up to a 30-day prescription. Thousands are signing up for the program every month.

Yet for all its apparent success, lawmakers have disregarded the V.A. model — and others like it that use the government's immense power to negotiate lower prices — as they try to give older Americans relief from rising drug costs while reshaping how the elderly get medical services.

Instead, a Congress deeply divided by ideology has given birth to legislation that would add prescription drug coverage to Medicare, but that many experts say would fall short of meeting the needs of the elderly. The benefits, costing $400 billion over 10 years, are complex and limited, and the legislation relies in part on cost control mechanisms that are untested or unproven.

In fact, Congress would exempt the drug industry from the kind of cost controls that are in place for virtually every other major provider of Medicare services.

"The legislation pending in Congress does more to deform than to reform Medicare," said Dr. Paul M. Ellwood, a noted health policy analyst who was an early proponent of managed care. "Instead of creating a system of readily understandable choices based on cost and quality, Congress is writing legislation that will increase the complexity of Medicare, so it will be more difficult for seniors to navigate."...

http://www.nytimes.com/2003/09/04/business/04MEDI.html?th

While this article examines the shortcomings of the Repug/Bush prescription plan they admit that in an election the details will get lost and Bush will be seen as having 'done something' , which will be beneficial. Like everything else about this administration their prescription plan is a false front that promotes itself as one thing (what people really want) while actually hiding behind itself the plans for its opposite. The Republican medicare plan is to real people's medical needs, as the Healthy Forest act is to _________________. (fill in the blank). God these guys make me sick.