ABOUT
3.7M ENROLLED IN DRUG CARD PROGRAM |
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The Bush administration is
nearly halfway toward its goal |
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of
enrolling 7.4 million people in the Medicare prescription |
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drug
discount card program, according to CMS Administrator Mark |
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McClellan,
the AP/Detroit News reports. To date, nearly 3.7 |
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million
people have enrolled in the program, which Bush |
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administration
officials say has helped reduce prescription drug |
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costs
by 10% to 25% for beneficiaries since April. According to |
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the
AP/News, some 66% of beneficiaries in the drug card program |
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were
enrolled automatically -- either because of their |
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membership
in a managed care plan or in a state prescription |
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drug
assistance plan permitted to automatically enrol them. |
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Health
care analysts say as many as 700,000 low-income |
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beneficiaries
could be enrolled in the program if the federal |
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government
expanded automatic enrolments (Sherman, AP/Detroit |
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News,
7/6). According to John Rother, policy
director for AARP, |
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the
political "controversy" over the new Medicare law has |
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"definitely
inhibited enrolments so far." He added, "The people |
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who
obviously do the best, who are helped quite substantially, |
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are
the low-income seniors ... but they're hard to find, and |
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they've
been hard to sign up." Grace-Marie Turner, president of |
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the
Galen Institute, said, "There are some people who just don't |
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want
to see any program succeed that was created by Republicans. |
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But
I think it's really reckless to discourage seniors, |
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especially
low-income seniors, from taking advantage of this |
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program"
(Lochhead, San Francisco Chronicle, 7/6).
Joseph |
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Antos,
a health policy expert at the American Enterprise |
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Institute,
said, "We should do as much as we can not to leave |
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people
out" of the drug card program. |
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BUSH ADMINISTRATION 'RESISTING'
AUTOMATIC ENROLLMENT |
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EXPANSION |
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The Bush administration so far
"is resisting" calls to |
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expand
automatic enrolments, saying it does not want to limit |
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people's
choice of cards. Although McClellan has "not ruled out |
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broader
automatic sign-ups," the Bush administration currently |
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is
limiting its efforts to enrol low-income beneficiaries by |
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providing
nearly $5 million to the Access to Benefits Coalition, |
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a
group of civic organizations dedicated to persuading |
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low-income
Medicare beneficiaries to enrol on their own, the |
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AP/News
reports. McClellan said he expects the
rate of |
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enrolment
to increase in the next few weeks (AP/Detroit News, |
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7/6). He said that 25,000 people are signing up
each day (San |
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Francisco
Chronicle, 7/6). Legislation introduced
in the House |
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and
the Senate that would require automatic enrolment of |
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low-income
Medicare beneficiaries has not advanced (AP/Detroit |
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News,
7/6). |
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PRICE CONTROLS? |
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In related news, a number of
industry analysts are |
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predicting
that as the cost of the new Medicare law increases in |
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the
next decade, insurers offering prescription drug coverage to |
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Medicare
beneficiaries will pressure the federal government to |
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institute
price controls on prescription drugs, |
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Reuters/Philadelphia
Inquirer reports. The law prohibits the |
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federal
government from negotiating prices with drug companies. |
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According
to the Bush administration, the new Medicare |
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prescription
drug benefit will cost at least $530 billion in the |
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first
10 years after it begins in 2006.
However, according to |
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Diane
Duston, a public policy analyst with Prudential Equity |
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Group,
the cost of the drug benefit could reach $800 billion in |
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the
first decade of the program, "tempting federal officials |
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to
adopt some form of price controls by 2009 to ease the drain |
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on
the [U.S.] Treasury," Reuters/Inquirer reports. Duston said, |
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"Politicians
will avoid using the phrase 'price controls' but |
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may
attempt something" similar. Matt
Stephani, a portfolio |
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manager
of Idex Great Companies-America Fund, said that if price |
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controls
were instituted for Medicare beneficiaries, there would |
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be
a "spill over" of lower drug prices for privately insured U.S. |
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residents
because the "privately insured would look at the |
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Medicare
prices and insist they be used as a negotiating point" |
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for
the cost of their own medicines.
Stephani and Duston said |
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that
the federal government also might be forced to institute |
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some
form of price controls if insurers begin losing money on |
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the
Medicare drug coverage and stop covering Medicare |
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beneficiaries. "Managed care could say to heck with it,
it's a |
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big
hassle, let's walk away from it. It
would become a |
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government-run
program at that point," Gordon Carey, a senior |
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official
with Cambridge Pharma Consultancy, said (Pierson, |
Reuters/Philadelphia
Inquirer, 7/5).
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