Granny Rant
Wednesday, July 02, 2003
Rats!! There are just TOO many problems involved in Rx Medicare for seniors :::
So ::: let's just not do anything ::: or ::: what do you suggest?
Prescription Time Bomb by Derek Hunter
From the above link at The Heritage Foundation come the following pearls of wisdom:
The Wall Street Journal noted this in a June 11 editorial. "Employers who still pay for retiree drug coverage…will in turn be only too happy to pass that burden onto taxpayers." The Journal referenced a General Motors Corp. internal analysis showing GM would save $1.4 billion by dropping retiree coverage.
Why would GM, or any other company, invest in prescription drugs if it doesn't have to? Companies will be only too happy to hand over the millions of seniors they currently cover to the government. That's why the UAW and the AFL-CIO issued statements opposing this bill.
In fact, the Congressional Budget Office estimated that 37 percent of seniors who are presently covered by their employer would lose their coverage. That's 4.4 million seniors.
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Granny Says
Major U.S. companies are already cutting back on or dropping coverage for retirees. That was
before the recent House & Senate Dog and Pony Show on Medicare :::
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Under the Senate plan the Michigan couple's prescription drug costs would jump from $780 a year to $6,119, plus the $420 premium, a total increase of more than 800 percent.
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Granny Says
So ::: This is a BAD PLAN ::: make it better!
Looks like Bush's Republican Medicare Plan for U.S. Seniors is:
Step One::::: Take all the $$ he can from the Pharmaceutical Companies
Step Two::::: Allow no negotiations with Pharmaceutical Companies for lower costs
Step Three::: Take all the $$ he can from the Insurance Industry
Step Four::::: Feed Some Seniors to the Insurance Industry Providers
Step Five::::: Insurance Providers Gobble the Rest
Step Six::::::: Bankrupt and Destroy Medicare completely
Granny is suspicious ::: Other interesting aspects of the bill
***Tennessee is worried Medicare will either not pay us a fee for service or
fee will not be sufficient. The language states, "Medicare would be able to
pay a dispensing fee to licensed approved pharmacies ..." Who knows what PBMs
will do with this language ... pharmacists guess possibly not even a penny fee.
***Seniors will be encouraged to use mail order service rather than local pharmacies.
***Seniors will be "locked in" to certain pharmacies ... probably CHAIN pharmacies
***Pharmacies want full disclosure of PBM Rebates from drug companies, etc
***Some cards for low income seniors would require pharmacies to accept AWP
(average wholesale price) less 20%. Many pharmacies get NO discount on narcotic
Rxs at all.
Ok fellow bloggers, that should bore everyone to tears and make certain no one visits my site
::: I call that a GrannyBarf :::
