Alliance to Fight Grassley-Baucus Medicare Bill at Grassroots

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Alliance to Fight Grassley-Baucus Medicare Bill

at Grassroots

Alliance for Retired Americans, June 13, 2003

The Alliance for Retired Americans has launched a massive grassroots campaign to defeat the Grassley-Baucus Medicare bill (S.1) approved by the Senate Finance Committee yesterday. "The Alliance will provide its groups around the country with flyers, talking points and fact sheets to help them spread the word that the bill is a disaster and not acceptable as a remedy for the prescription drug crisis facing older Americans," reports President George J. Kourpias.

"The Alliance has also established a toll-free number (1-877-331-2000) that seniors may use to call their Senators and tell them to oppose the Grassley-Baucus Medicare bill, when it comes before the full Senate," he says. According to Kourpias, the major drawbacks to the bill are:

a.. privatizes Medicare;

b.. forces seniors who stay in Medicare to buy stand-alone, privately run drug plans thus putting them at the mercy of private insurers;

c.. fails to bring down the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs;

d.. provides no guaranteed premiums;

e.. allows seniors to be bounced from plan to plan every one to two years; and

f.. permits employers to drop existing retiree prescription drug coverage.

"Budget officials are now predicting that Medicare patients would pay about $1,200 in premiums, deductibles and other charges before the alleged drug benefit would exceed what they pay out of pocket," warns Kourpias. "In fact, it is estimated that about 35 percent of all Medicare beneficiaries would spend more than they receive. If that is not outrageous, I don't know what is. The benefits are not scheduled to kick in for three years," he says. "Until then, they will be offered discount cards which do very little to solve the crisis confronting older Americans."

Noting that "House Republican leaders picked yesterday to announce their latest version of a prescription drug benefit," Alliance Secretary-Treasurer Ruben Burks says, "It is even worse than the Senate plan. Once again, they are going to try to pit one group of seniors against another by requiring higher-income Medicare recipients to pay more for medicine. We went through this with the catastrophic bill in the late '80s, it didn't work then and it won't work now."

"The Alliance has a tough job ahead but we will get the message to America's seniors and they are smart enough to say 'no' to their elected officials," says Kourpias. "Timing is really important, however, as both Houses of Congress are rushing to get a final bill to the President before their August break.