Robert M.
Hayes, President, Medicare Rights Center, comments on ‘The Truth on
Part D Enrollment’
No
amount of exaggeration can disguise two central facts: over 80
percent of impoverished people with Medicare eligible for a
comprehensive drug benefit have not been enrolled; nearly 51 percent
of the people with Medicare who had no drug coverage on January 1st,
still have no coverage.
The Social Security Administration continues to report that just 1.7
million of the estimated 8.2 million people eligible for the low
income subsidy have been enrolled. The Bush Administration has left
behind the neediest Americans, the men and women who were supposed
to benefit most from drug coverage.
Prior to the launch of the drug benefit, 17.7 million people with
Medicare had no or only limited prescription drug coverage. Today,
contrary to the Administration’s flawed enrollment reports, about
ten million of the 43 million Americans with Medicare continue to
lack drug coverage.
The Bush Administration today has stated that 6 million people with
Medicare lack drug coverage. But there are another 5.8 million
people who the Administration recently decided to count as having
drug coverage. These claims are without substantiation. These
numbers include 3.2 million veterans, 2 million working aged seniors
and 600,000 individuals with access to the Indian Health Service. In
fact, many of these 5.8 million people do not have drug coverage and
many others of them have signed up for Part D and are thus being
counted twice. Even if we assume that half of the 5.8 million have
some drug coverage through those other sources, by our conservative
analysis about 10 million older adults and disabled Americans still
lack drug coverage.
The drug benefit was launched not to benefit the insurance industry
but to offer humanitarian assistance to the 17.7 million people with
Medicare who lacked drug coverage. That 9 million of them—51
percent—still lack coverage today provides ample proof that Part D
is failing to serve most of those whom it was intended to help.
Most tragically, over six million of the poorest Americans are still
shut out from enrollment in the much heralded, sadly designed, low
income subsidy.
Commitment to change and improvement, not self-congratulatory
hyperbole, would be a more seemly Administration response to the
reality facing older and disabled Americans.