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Bush Urges Prescription Drug Plan

for Elderly Americans

By Chris Fusco and Courtney K. Wade

Chicago Sun-Times, June 12, 2003

Graphic Image U.S. President George W. Bush has called on Congress to pass a prescription drug plan for elderly Americans.

The Bush administration abandoned an earlier proposal that would have offered better prescription-drug coverage for senior citizens willing to join private health plans. The current version would offer equal benefits for people in the traditional Medicare program or in private plans.

Democrats had criticized the president's earlier plan, and some suggest the current plan still does not go far enough to meet the needs of senior citizens.

Medicare benefits are a major issue as a large section of the population - "baby boomers" born in the post-World War II years - will begin to retire over the next few years.

President Bush on Wednesday pointed to a Mount Prospect couple and a Lombard obstetrician as examples of how health care needs to be reformed, including the addition of a long-sought prescription drug benefit for seniors on Medicare.

"We have an unprecedented opportunity to give America's seniors an up-to-date Medicare system," Bush told members of the Illinois State Medical Society. "With the right spirit, I am confident that both the House and the Senate can act on historic Medicare improvements before the Fourth of July recess."

As many as one-third of American seniors, including 900,000 in the Chicago area, must pay for their drugs out of pocket because Medicare won't cover them, the president said.

"Time and time again, Medicare's failure to pay for drugs leaves our seniors at risk of serious illnesses, disease and injuries, all of which Medicare would pay to treat after the fact," said Bush, noting that Medicare would pay a potential $28,000 bill to treat serious ulcers but would not cover a $500 annual drug bill that could stop such ulcers from developing.

"Medicine is changing," Bush said. "Medicare is not."

Several members of Illinois' congressional delegation joined Bush on Air Force One for the trip to Chicago. On the flight into O'Hare Airport, he asked why his helicopter trip into downtown would not end at Meigs Field.

The president, a source said, apparently was unaware Mayor Daley had closed the lakefront airport. Bush met with Daley and Gov. Blagojevich at O'Hare before boarding his Marine One chopper, which landed at Grant Park instead of what Daley now likes to call "Northerly Island.''

As Bush spoke in the Hilton Chicago ballroom, consensus already had been building in Washington for a compromise prescription-drug plan.

The White House has been insistent that a prescription-drug benefit through Medicare give seniors financial incentives to buy drugs through preferred provider networks. It remains to be seen how much incentive--if any--seniors would be given to join such private health plans.

A proposal that would all but eliminate the incentives that Bush wants is pending in the Senate.

"I'm hopeful the White House will support the Senate proposal," said Sen. Peter Fitzgerald (R-Ill.). "This year may be the year we finally pass it."

Bush's push to get seniors their drugs through private plans raised the ire of protesters who carried signs that included the messages "Stop Bush from destroying Medicare" and "Do you trust this man with your health care?"

"It's a phony plan," said Nat Silberman, 78. "It's not going to help any senior--not the people who need the help."

"We want to let him know he cannot come into town and push these fake proposals without being called on it," said William E. McNary, co-director of Citizen Action Illinois.

The protesters met Bush as he walked into the hotel to meet privately with a handful of doctors and seniors. They included Mount Prospect residents Dan and Barbara Lee.

"He's like a neighbor," Barbara Lee said of the president. "Very friendly."

The Lees, both in their 60s, now pay for health insurance through Dan's job but will lose that coverage soon. Then they will begin to pay at least $300 a month for six kinds of drugs that Barbara takes.

Also, Dan has leukemia. He isn't taking drugs for that now but could in the future.

Bush referred to the couple in his speech, saying, "Dan describes Medicare this way: 'There isn't a lot of choice, and I think people ought to have choice.' Congress needs to listen to Dan."

The president also singled out Lombard obstetrician Dr. Andrew Roth to illustrate his case for capping medical malpractice awards at $250,000 for pain and suffering. The House has passed medical liability reform, but the Senate has yet to act.

Dr. Roth's "insurance premiums are going up 50 percent next month, to $170,000," Bush said. "And next January, he expects another 40 percent increase. . . . Because this state has no medical liability reform, the cost of him staying as a baby doc is getting out of sight."

Roth said he is considering leaving his home in Oak Brook to move to a state where liability caps have been enacted and insurance premiums are more reasonable.

But medical liability reform at the federal level is facing a fight from victims and a powerful trial lawyers' lobby. The Coalition for Consumer Rights, a group partly funded by Illinois trial lawyers, contends greedy insurance companies are to blame for doctors' high premiums.

Still, Bush concluded, "I want to sign Medicare reform into law, and I want to sign medical liability reform into law, so that we can look the American people in the eye and say we have done our job."