Medicare Part D - Joe Scarborough Doesn't Remember "All These Problems"

 Medicare Part D - It's Problems - It's Rollout Similarities to the Affordable Care Act

by Kaiser Family Foundation

It bothered my when Joe Scarborough said he didn't remember "all these problems" with the Prescription Drug Plan bill back when President George W. Bush and the Republicans pushed through what some call the "worst legislation passed since the 1960's. At about 6:20 AM  this morning on his show, Joe Scarborough said "the only thing I remember is that they (the Republicans) held the vote open for 3 weeks and then bribed Nick Smith for his vote. He should use his current health plan to look into what pharmaceuticals are available for a bad memory. I sent an e-mail off to the show immediately, here's a copy of the text:

 

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"First let me say that I love Morning Joe and you all help me start my day, everyday. I've been watching for years and depend on the show to start my day and gather information before I work on my blog www.Medic3569.blogspot.com which I use to inform and motivate people to become well informed and especially to contact Congressmen/women and Senators.

At approximately 6:20 AM Joe Scarborough said he didn't remember "all these problems with Medicare Part D."  What I remember about the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act is that the vote was held open until like 3:00 AM while Republicans twisted arms of other Republicans to vote for the bill. The party threatened Republicans to not back them in their next election if they didn't vote for the bill. I remember that it took away the right to negotiate price (except for the Veterans Administration who was smart enough to stay out of it) and the price Medicare would pay for a common heart went from $280 annually to over $1200 annually.

On December 8, 2003 these provisions of the law passed the Congress by a narrow margin:

• it provides a subsidy for large employers to discourage them from eliminating private prescription coverage to retired workers (a key AARP goal.)
• it prohibits the Federal government from negotiating discounts with drug companies;
• it prevents the government from establishing a formulary , though does not prevent private providers such as HMO's from doing so.

It's the second one I have a problem with, especially since the Republicans and George W. Bush offered no way whatsoever of paying for it!
Later, after the hugh windfall that drug companies enjoyed, I believe it was 60 Minutes who reported, 23-25 of the politicians that co-sponsored the bill had left their jobs in the Congress by either not running for re-election or, in at least one case, just resigned their position, and went to work for pharmaceutical companies at salaries well north of $1M a year.
Joe Scarborough doesn't remember any problems with the bill except for one Congressman that the Republicans were pressuring to change his vote, perhaps he should look into what prescriptions are available for senility."

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Photo by crooksandliars.com

Here are Some of the Problems Medicare Part D had on Rollout

For one thing, the Bush administration faced a difficult political battle to get the bill passed in 2003. I remember they had to hold the vote open until 3:00 AM while they twisted the Republicans arms to vote for the bill. Joe Scarborough said they actually held the vote open for three weeks, I don't know about that.

That damaged public opinion of the law, making it a challenge to educate 43 million seniors on its nuances.

Enrollment in the law was set to begin in late 2005. In April of that year, a Kaiser Family Foundation poll found that only 27 percent of respondents understood the law, while only 21 percent favored it. (In a comparable Kaiser poll in April 2013, 35 percent viewed the Affordable Care Act favorably and less than half felt they were well-informed of its details.)

The Medicare site, meant to help seniors pick benefit plans, was supposed to debut Oct. 13, 2005, but it didn’t go live until weeks later in November. Even then, "the tool itself appeared to be in need of fixing," the Washington Post reported at this time.

From PolitiFact - Did Medicare Part D have the same rollout problems as the Obamacare online marketplaces? :

"Visitors to the site could not access it for most of the first two hours. When it finally did come up around 5 p.m., it operated awfully slowly," the Post reported. (Sensing a pattern?)

Once seniors began to enroll, problems persisted. According to the report, the online tools had "accuracy problems," and local organizations designated with assisting seniors "reported problems getting necessary and accurate information." Call centers provided by the Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services underestimated "the needed capacity to ensure that reliable answers could be provided" and "service representatives were not knowledgeable or failed to provide accurate information."

The Georgetown experts anticipated similar hiccups with the Affordable Care Act, noting that the country’s experience with Medicare Part D suggested "the experience will be far from perfect" and "problems were not always addressed as quickly or as thoroughly as critics would have liked, but fixes were usually found."
These days, nine in 10 seniors who utilize the program report they are satisfied with it.
"There’s really a striking amount of similarity even though this time it’s a far larger and daunting task. It’s a fair comparison," said Jack Hoadley at the Georgetown University's Health Policy Institute and one of the authors of the study. "Once something works its way through the problems, you forget the problems."

Approximately twp weeks before the bill passed and the Bush administration was saying the law would cost about $100M, but it was revealed that the plan would cost at least $500M, it turned out to cost much, much, more.

Photo by econbroswer.com

 In a story by Nick Gillespie at Reason.com on November 19, 2013:

         According to the latest actuaries’ report, Medicare Part D will cost taxpayers - beneficiaries pay virtually nothing -    Part D will cost taxpayers — beneficiaries pay virtually nothing — $62 billion this year. This figure is expected to rise sharply in coming years to $150 billion in 2019. By 2030, Part D alone will cost taxpayers 1 percent of GDP. In present value terms, Medicare Part D adds almost $16 trillion to our national indebtedness. (That's how much would need to be in a trust fund today to pay all the benefits that have been promised over and above the trivial premiums paid by beneficiaries.) That is why former U.S. Comptroller David Walker has called the unfunded prescription drug benefit "the most fiscally irresponsible piece of legislation since the 1960's."  Read more at Reason.com

Photo by blog.floridablue.com

Where Does The Affordable Care Act (Obamacare) Go From Here?

After spending more than $60M on 46 votes to repeal Obamacare the Republicans still have never offered any other plan to help insure the 40 million Americans who didn't have, and couldn't afford health insurance. Mitt Romney, the Republican, who when he was Governor of Massachusetts passed the health law that Obamacare is designed after. They would like to forget how much insurance premiums were rising and that since the Affordable Care Act was signed into law that the rate of increases has been reduced. The Republicans complain about "millions of policies being cancelled" but choose to not respond to where they were when millions of people who paid health insurance premiums for years had their policies cancelled once they became ill. The TeaPublican Republicans have no response about positive things that the Affordable Care Act have done like; allowing children to stay on their parents policies until the age of 26; or that insurance companies now have to spend at least 80% of the money they collect from premiums on the policy holders instead of giving themselves hugh salaries and bonuses; or how 40 million Americans who only had emergency rooms to use as their only access to healthcare, the most expensive way to pay for someone's healthcare will now have healthcare plans and preventive medicine. What  we all need to do is work to fix the problems with The Patient Protection and Affordable Care Act as they arise and get everyone affordable healthcare.