We need an administration that is serious about providing drug and healthcare. The new Medicare Drug Card Program isn’t serious, it’s a shell game with seniors paying the cost - and we knew it before it started. Shame on Bush and those in Congress that supported the program, may they grow old and have to depend on such a program, while everyone else gets a real deal. And, in a case where shooting the messenger is more than appropriate, shame on the AARP, the writers of the recent drug price surge report, who pretend to be a advocacy group instead of an insurance company. The AARP leadership went against the interests and views of their members and seniors everywhere in endorsing the legislation, the results of which AARP now has the audacity to criticize. AARP’s excuse that the legislation ‘wasn’t perfect,’ but something needed to be done, provided cover for the current disastrous Medicare drug system that undercut the possibility for positive change in drug coverage. They knew it then, as they know it now.
WurfWhile
Insight - Foresight - Hindsight
Comments 2
Hiram, The head of the AARP at the time of the Medicare “Reform” package’s passage worked with Newt Gingrich… That tells you everything you need to know right there.
And didn’t a very large portion of the cost of this GOP plan go toward corporate welfare: giving pharma cos billions so they *wouldn’t* raise prices.
- Rob
Posted 02 Jul 2004 at 11:22 am ¶Hi Rob,
Your first comment I covered linking to Buzzflash in the blog entry under “AARP leadership” (Buzzflash does a good job with this, including giving the intro that AARP CEO, William D. Novelli wrote for the Gingrich book (www.buzzflash.com/analysis/03/11/ana03307.html)
As to your second comment, I wasn’t aware the drug companies were given tons of money “so they *wouldn’t* raise prices” - I thought they were just simply being given the money
The legislation is criminal, not to mention falling well short of what we should be doing in a matter of life and death for some seniors.
Posted 02 Jul 2004 at 7:16 pm ¶Post a Comment