Members of our Capital District ARA have been concerned about how the new Medicare drug law may be undermining Medicare's reputation as a government program. They suggested that a sample letter to the editor on the Medicare drug program be prepared. I have written one below which you are free to use all or part of or edit to your liking and send on to your local newspapers. I encourage you to send it to weekly papers as well as the large dailies. - Mike Burgess

The Medicare drug benefit was supposed to be a help for seniors and the disabled. For too many people it has turned into a headache. If the drug benefit had been designed with the interests of its beneficiaries in mind, it would look a lot like the New York State EPIC program (and added the disabled) which has a very high satisfaction rate from those who are enrolled in it. It has a standard fees and co-payments with a broad formulary covering most drugs and with most pharmacies in the state participating. 

Instead of a universal, comprehensive, standardized national drug benefit designed for seniors and the disabled, the Medicare drug benefit was designed as an affirmative action program for insurance companies and a cash cow to increase the profits of the pharmaceutical companies. Over 100 companies nationally are approved to offer drug plans with very few standards. There is no standard premium, the drugs covered are different and the pharmacies used may vary. Those running the program say it's all about competition and keeping prices down. If they really wanted to keep prices down, then Congress would have authorized the federal government to negotiate drug prices on behalf of all Medicare beneficiaries just as Canada's provinces do. No, this drug law has specific language against doing that, showing its bias to protect the pharmaceutical companies.

In addition, all the Medicare/Medicaid dually eligible individuals had their coverage switched to Medicare. The drug companies loved this and supported it. They reaped a huge windfall with this transfer. Rather than have to pay rebates of about 20% to state governments by offering Medicaid their best price, they ended up offering much smaller discounts to the private drug plans. So all of this inconvenience in switching to private plans for the poorest and sickest was written right into the law to make the pharmaceutical companies richer.

Some people are saying look what a mess the government has made of this program. Actually, Medicare has been a very successful social insurance program though like all health insurance plans it has its problems and needed to be improved. The drug mess was made by those who wanted to privatize Medicare and under the guise of offering "choice," they have designed a way for private companies to skim profits from Medicare. The drug and insurance lobbies had the political muscle to write a program that does not allow Medicare itself to run the drug benefit, but simply to supervise and pay hundreds of private plans to do it. 

If those who designed this program believed in real competition, they would have included a government run drug plan with standard fees and benefits as an option. That simplified option might have proven too popular with seniors though and the private plans would have had to struggle to make money facing this real competition. Now, there is a chance to do that with the Kennedy-Stabenow bill in Congress that would establish a Medicare-run drug plan as an option.

The scandal in Washington over the undue influence of corporate special interests illustrates exactly what was wrong when Congress was willing to cave in and let the drug companies and insurance companies help write the Medicare drug program. 

Medicare may not be a perfect program, but a government-run program with standard benefits, like the New York State EPIC drug program is a far better option than what we have been given.