‘People with Medicare are frustrated and bewildered…’

Robert M. Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center, a national consumer service organization, issued a statement related to Medicare’s new prescription drug program. An excerpt:

Less than five percent of people who could voluntarily choose a prescription drug plan have done so (see calculations below). People with Medicare are frustrated and bewildered about a program that is needlessly complex and unreliable. The reasons for these appalling enrollment numbers are self-evident.

President Bush and Congress refused to enact a Medicare drug plan. Instead, 43 million Americans have been offered a subsidized industry of profit-making insurance plans hawking incomprehensible benefit packages. Any honest appraisal of the drug program’s performance demands an immediate restructuring to enact a drug benefit that would offer nationwide, understandable and affordable drug coverage through Medicare.

You can read the rest of the statement by following this link.