The Bush administration's Medicare drug card program took effect on Tuesday, but some Maine seniors are still choosing to buy their drugs in Canada. About a dozen older Mainers crossed the border Wednesday afternoon to purchase a six-month supply of prescription medications, saving themselves a total of about $14,000, according to Nina Quirion of the Maine Council of Senior Citizens, the group that organized the bus trip. At a prearranged stop on Thursday at Dysart's truck stop in Hermon, the bus was met by Sen. Stephen Stanley, D-Medway, and Senate Majority Leader Sharon A. Treat, D-Gardiner, supporters of the John Kerry presidential campaign, and a small gaggle of reporters and photographers. 

Speaking behind a makeshift podium hung with a "Kerry for President" banner, Treat called the seniors' trip "a sad commentary on the current state of affairs in Washington." 

Despite the much ballyhooed Medicare drug benefit, Treat said, "the truth is the federal government has done nothing to lower drug prices. In fact, at the same time the government put a flat-out ban on negotiating cheaper prices in the recent Medicare law and started cracking down on importing drugs from Canada, the cost for the most-prescribed prescription drugs for seniors has skyrocketed." 

Treat said Mainers were fortunate to have effective consumer drug discount programs such as Maine Rx Plus and that the federal government should follow suit, using its buying power to negotiate lower prices from drug manufacturers. 

Several bus passengers took the podium as well, struggling to make themselves heard over the heavy truck traffic in the Dysart's parking lot. Outspoken 71-year-old Paulette Beaudoin of Biddeford said she saved more than $5,000 on a six-month supply of the medications she needed by going to Canada instead of buying them at her local drugstore. A five-year veteran of Canadian drug-buying trips, Beaudoin called the new Medicare drug benefit "a farce" that should never have been enacted. 

"This isn't helping us," she said. "Are you kidding?" 

Beaudoin said neither Republicans nor Democrats in Washington are working hard enough to make meaningful change. "I just hope that somebody can finally do something fair that we can afford," she said. "But right now, nobody's doing a thing." 

Sitting alone on the bus during the political hay-making outside, staunch Republican Jeanne Merrow, 77, of Kennebunk said she would never have made the trip if she had realized it was an act of political activism - she just wanted to save some money on her medications. Merrow said she bought a three-month supply of her medications for about $250 less than she would have paid locally, but had to endure two days of unrelenting Democratic rhetoric in the process. 

Still, she said, the experience convinced her to volunteer for the Bush re-election campaign when she gets back home, in hope of supporting some changes in the Medicare benefit. Merrow said she would not sign up for a Medicare prescription card because she can get a better deal through Maine Rx Plus and other state programs. 

Despite recent federal warnings, neither Beaudoin nor Merrow had any concerns about the safety of the medications they had obtained across the border. Beaudoin laughed at the question and pointed out that many drugs available in the United States are manufactured in other countries. "They're just trying to scare us into buying more expensive drugs," she said. 

Merrow said that although the drugs she bought look different from those she is used to getting in Maine, she wasn't worried about their safety after seeing the Canadian drugstore where she bought them. "But going on the Internet could be big trouble," she cautioned. "People doing that could be getting ripped off." 

Members of Maine's congressional delegation used the occasion to remind their constituents of their positions on the issue of drug costs. In written statements, Republican Sens. Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, who both voted for the Medicare drug bill, said they supported proposals to ensure the legality, safety and efficacy of drugs imported from other countries. Democratic 2nd District Rep. Michael Michaud spoke on the floor of the House Thursday afternoon, saying the Mainers' bus trip was "a clear sign that seniors feel [the Medicare drug plan] is ineffective, or just don't see how it can help them."