Press Releases

The new Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit, Part D, has been in effect since the beginning of the year, and the first two months of the program have been marred by ineffectiveness and confusion. Many seniors – particularly those that qualify for both Medicare and Medicaid, known as “dual eligibles” – have not been able to get their prescriptions filled or have been charged excessive amounts. At the same time, millions of low-income seniors who qualify for the most help have not signed up for the program, in many cases because it is too difficult to understand.

What is easy to understand is that many of the problems in the original legislation, such as not allowing Medicare to negotiate the lowest possible drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, are benefiting drug companies more than seniors (it is no coincidence that 13 former Republican Members of Congress and staff who wrote the prescription drug law now work for the drug industry). There is no standard benefit, and seniors have to buy private coverage or enroll in a Medicare managed care plan to get coverage. Congress could have added outpatient prescription drugs as a benefit in Medicare, allowing beneficiaries to get access without having to purchase a separate policy. Seniors are left to sort through dozens of competing plans without the ability to readily change plans if they feel they have made a mistake.

Last November, I held forums with representatives of Medicare and the state of Illinois to provide information and help seniors navigate the new plan. Now, I am a cosponsor of legislation that would extend the deadline to sign-up for the new benefit beyond May 15 to December 31, 2006. This bill would also allow beneficiaries who make a mistake to switch plans once and protect beneficiaries from losing their employer-based coverage. This will provide some relief to our seniors, but we need to go farther and make the major changes to this bill that will make it operate more efficiently in the long run.

Seniors in the United States deserve to pay the same low costs for prescription drugs that seniors in other countries pay, and we have the ability to make that happen. There is still time to get this right and help our seniors afford the medicines they need, we just need the will to do it.