It’s your
money…HHS and Medicare to spend 50 percent more ($31.7 million) to
push Bush prescription drug card plan
The Centers for
Medicare & Medicaid Services says that it is going to spend an
additional $31.7 million to promote the Bush Administration’s
Medicare Prescription Drug Card plan. That’s an increase of 50
percent over the original amount planned.
In making the
announcement, Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt said
that the agency must “insure (sic) that America ’s Medicare
beneficiaries and people with disabilities are fully informed of the
new prescription drug coverage and are able to make confident
decisions on what is best for them.”
When the plan
was first announced, it created a great deal of confusion among
seniors. Also, some authorities in working on prescription drug
plans for their constituencies, have doubted both the ability and
the willingness of the Federal government to negotiate lower prices,
a situation made even more acute by the rapid round of price
increases that occurred when the plan passed.
At that time,
President Bush did a rush of media tours similar but smaller in
scale to today’s costly push for his trouble Social Security
dismantlement, with virtually the same results.
“It is obvious
that this President’s health care policies continue to be on a
shipwreck course,” says Daniel Hines, Publisher of
www.TodaysSeniorsNetwork.com, one of the nation’s leading
informational web sites for seniors. “In typical Bush
Administration fashion, the increase in funding for ‘informational’
efforts on behalf of the Medicare Prescription Drug Card illustrates
this President’s approach to solving any situations that threaten
his policies—thrown money at it.”