BushCo never stops and now it is Medicare Scam Part D

[whistle]

...The shit is about to hit the fan for the millions of seniors forced to choose private companies for their Medicare Part D prescription drug coverage, the Bush drug plan, according to the health care consultancy firm Avalere Health's Oct. 5 press release.

After wading through the incomprehensible complexity of the sign-up process for the plan, and settling on a company for their prescription needs, seniors are not likely to switch companies if they can avoid it, the release says. Thus, knowing they have "captive" customers, the big medical insurance blood suckers are hiking the prices of their premiums by as much as 89% (in the case of United's Medicare Rx AARP Plan-Saver prescription drug plan, which has over 900,000 enrollees).

The average customer who remains in his or her present plan stands to pay 21% more in 2008 than in 2007, the inaugural year of Bush's privatized program. And though there are still some deals to be had, the large insurance companies are banking on the elderly staying put and biting the bullet.

Like every other instance of privatization, from utilities to health care, what is advertised as cheaper and more efficient due to competition in the marketplace, in reality turns out to be paying more for less to fewer gargantuan corporations. Just one mor major tick in the inflationary spiral for ordinary Americans.

One thing not mentioned are the copay changes and also the constant shifting of what drugs are covered by the insurance which brands fall away from the formulary lists of these companies. It is the accountants and health insurance administrators who are directing the care of the elderly in the United States today.

<snip>
Average Medicare Prescription Drug Premiums to Rise 21%

WASHINGTON, Oct. 5 /PRNewswire/ -- If consumers stay put in their
current Medicare prescription drug plans, the average beneficiary will see
a 21% increase in their monthly premiums for 2008, says new analysis
released by Avalere Health.

Using newly released CMS data and its proprietary DataFrame(R)
database, Avalere experts computed an "enrollment weighted" average premium
for the Medicare Part D marketplace. Under this method, the premiums of
plans with the most enrollees are assigned a heavier weight relative to
plans with scant enrollment, giving a truer measure of the beneficiary
experience. For example, a premium increase for a prescription drug plan
(PDP) with 3 million enrollees carries vastly greater impact on more people
than a premium increase for a plan with 10,000 enrollees.

"The reality of the Medicare experience is that beneficiaries have been
very loyal thus far to their initial plan selections," said Dan Mendelson,
president of Avalere Health. "If consumers stick to their choices again,
they are likely to see a dramatic increase in their monthly premiums. But,
consumers who shop around may be able to find lower cost alternatives."

The top ten PDP sponsors in Medicare have more than 80% of the people
enrolled in stand-alone PDPs. Among those top ten plan sponsors, all have
raised their premiums, with the exception of two: CVS Caremark's
SilverScript plan and First Health's Part D Premier plan. Using Avalere's
enrollment-weighted premium methodology, the Humana PDP Standard (currently
with the second-most enrollment) raised its premium an average of 69%. The
largest increase -- 89% -- is in United's Medicare Rx AARP Plan-Saver PDP,
which as of July 2007 had over more 900,000 enrollees.

"The shift in premiums from year to year reflects a close calibration
by the plan sponsors to maintain customer loyalty, remain competitively
priced, and achieve profitability," said Bob Atlas, senior vice president
of Avalere Health.

Avalere will continue to analyze Medicare drug benefit data as it is
publicly released. Since the inception of the Medicare drug program,
Avalere has used its DataFrame(R) database to track trends in drug pricing,
plan strategy and structure, and the beneficiary experience. For more
information on DataFrame(R) and Avalere's analytic capabilities, contact
Brian Bruen, [e-mail].

http://www.prnewswire.com/cgi-bin/stories.pl?ACCT=DRKOOPMTC.story&STORY=/www/story/10-05-2007/0004676815&EDATE=FRI+Oct+05+2007,+11:40+AM

[Nimrod2005]

1. Also take a look at this, related story in the NYT this morning...

Medicare Audits Show Problems in Private Plans

Snip

The problems, described in 91 audit reports reviewed by The New York Times, include the improper termination of coverage for people with H.I.V. and AIDS, huge backlogs of claims and complaints, and a failure to answer telephone calls from consumers, doctors and drugstores.

Snip

Many of the marketing abuses occurred in sales of the fastest-growing type of Medicare Advantage product, known as private fee-for-service plans. In June, the government announced that seven of the leading companies in this market, including UnitedHealth, Humana and Coventry, had agreed to suspend marketing of these plans. Medicare recently allowed them to resume marketing after they took steps to monitor their sales agents more closely.

http://www.nytimes.com/2007/10/07/us/07medicare.html?hp

[whistle]

5. Privatized larceny of medicare Part D

[liberaldemocrat7]

14. Repeal Medicare Part D and put the benefit in Part B. Make a phone call.

I'm looking for liberal activists around the country to organize this telephone campaign to repeal medicare part D and more. Make the phone call and tell others to make the phone call during business hours during the week. email me at

info at dmocrats dot org with the subject CALLED after you make these calls. Tell others to do so too. I have a web site at
www dmocrats org

Why call GOP contributors? Because the Republicans in the house and senate and in the white house remain insulated from the public and can use the filibuster and the veto, but these GOP contributors do not appear insulated from the public and need your business. What if thousands of people called these companies listed below and said I will not buy your products or do business with you until you get our legislation enacted into law. It would scare the CEO and prompt him to do something about our demands.



Call GOP contributor Rite Aid at 1-800-325-3737 and tell the person to get the CEO to get the GOP to enact HR 676 Single payer universal health care and repeal Medicare Part D and place the drug benefit in Medicare Part B covering 80% of drugs with no extra premiums, no extra deductibles, no means tests, no coverage gaps, and remove the means test for Medicare Part B and until that happens, you won't buy ANYTHING from Rite Aid.

[soothsayer]

2. I don't get why swarms of seniors don't storm AARP with torches and canes

They TOTALLY sold everyone down the river.

[Nimrod2005]

3. AARP is having second thoughts right now, no?

[whistle]

8. As in a corporate conscience? I doubt that...they are a blight and must be

...disolved. AARP may have at time had the best interests of America's elderly in their mission, but over the last seven years that has all been wiped away. They are infested with neocon appointees and as far as I'm concerned will never again be interested in any socially beneficial cause for the elderly.

[whistle]

7. I was a paid member of AARP from 1990 until they signed with BushCo in 2003

...I then tore up my AARP card and mailed the pieces along with a letter telling them what I thought of their betrayal. After that all correspondence I received from AAPR I had returned to them along with the content barrage of United HealthCare propaganda on medicare. I became eligible to enroll in medicare this past February, and I did for everything but Part D.

Fortunately I do have my company health insurance which I maintain specifically for the prescription drug coverage and as a secondary payer. As long as I am able to work I will have the plan and I can, so I do.

Meanwhile, this health insurance cluster fuck must get straightened out and the Dennis Kucinich proposal makes the most sense for all of America, medicare for everyone, government managed single payer system which will put 35% of all the insurance company administrative extortion costs and profits back into health care for all Americans!

[partylessinOhio]

4. This is shameful. Screw the ones that can least afford it.

There should be one plan, one cost, that covers all drugs that can be obtained wherever the participant chooses to go. Medicare should issue a drug card with a very low co-pay stated on the card.

Why should the senior years be any different from the coverage most had while working?

:thumbsdown:

[flordehinojos]

6. so many are moving to costa rica, panama, mexico ... canada and a friend even moved to england.

all of this should make bush happy. he is getting rid of the middle class whom he thinks can afford to purchase insurance but wants to be given it by the government.

this may be a tiny asterick in what seems to be bush's modern version of prescott's belief in supremacy.

[whistle]

9. You mean elderly people? Most can not afford to do that and many are not healthy

...enough to be anywhere else than where they are now. This is a problem that America must solve.

[flordehinojos]

10. yes ... i mean many elderly are moving to those countries i mentioned...

and they are doing so precisely because they can't afford to be precisely where they are now.

and yes! This is a problem that the United States must solve but it will be solved only after the bushes unchain us from their grasp (or we unchain their grasp on us).

[Faryn Balyncd]

11. Medicare Part D is perhaps the WORST piece of legislation ever passed, far worse than NO PLAN at all

By putting seniors into a plan where they are paying for Medicare Part D, which will NOT cover mail orders from Canadian pharmacies, Medicare Part D has eliminated the gray market Canadian competition, and has CREATED an environment which encourage even worse price-gouging by U.S. pharmaceutical companies.

Now that huge numbers of seniors have been hoodwinked into Medicare Part D participation, they are being subjected to huge price increases which the drug companies would NEVER have been able to get away with before Medicare Part D. (A few years age, if they had jacked up the US prices like they are now doing, they would have markedly increased the Canadian mail order business.)

We are now seeing a situation where seniors will be paying far more for Medicare Part D than they would have paid if they were uninsured and buying from Canada.

The best thing we could do for seniors is REPEAL medicare Part D, and reverse the new restrictions on re-importation of drugs from Canada and elsewhere.

[datadiva]

12. My husband has Silverscript

He is on the verge of the donut hole. I don't know what the hell we are going to do to be able to afford his meds. I'm on state disability right now and our income is the pits. It used to be hell to get old. Now its worse than hell. It's *ush's hell. Screw over old people while your rich buddies get richer. :hurts:

[whistle]

13. This is another reason why the medicare Part D needs to be voted out

...and replaced with a program that works for all of medicare recipients. The donut hole idea was a complete scam on America's elderly and those on disability. I am so sorry to hear that you have been caught in the donut "black hole" of BushCo's medicon program.

There is a site that may be able to offer you some suggestions for assistance. It is:

http://www.medicarerights.org/press_medicare_story_ideas.html