The Scoot Inn
Medicare D Completely Broken
RECEIVED Wed., July 19, 2006
To the editors,
An unpublicized and presumably unforeseen consequence of the new Medicare Part D drug plan scam is the virtual abandonment of the low-income disabled, the dual enrollees. These people have difficult lives to begin with due to their health issues, but since January things are much more difficult for them. Since the switch from the old Medicare/Medicaid system, low-income disabled are being overcharged and denied meds necessary to their lives by for-profit insurance companies. We are told to pick a plan with the needed meds on its formulary, yet drug plans deny patients drugs on their formularies with loopholes and willful contempt for the physician-written treatment plans and prescriptions. This leads to a Kafka-esque cycle of every agency sending a complainant to another agency, all with reasons why it's not in their current job description to deal with problems with Medicare D. Eventually, it becomes clear that there is not a developed controlling mechanism in place. When the next Congress meets it must reform Medicare D as it applies to the dual-enrolled population. Right now it is completely broken.
An unpublicized and presumably unforeseen consequence of the new Medicare Part D drug plan scam is the virtual abandonment of the low-income disabled, the dual enrollees. These people have difficult lives to begin with due to their health issues, but since January things are much more difficult for them. Since the switch from the old Medicare/Medicaid system, low-income disabled are being overcharged and denied meds necessary to their lives by for-profit insurance companies. We are told to pick a plan with the needed meds on its formulary, yet drug plans deny patients drugs on their formularies with loopholes and willful contempt for the physician-written treatment plans and prescriptions. This leads to a Kafka-esque cycle of every agency sending a complainant to another agency, all with reasons why it's not in their current job description to deal with problems with Medicare D. Eventually, it becomes clear that there is not a developed controlling mechanism in place. When the next Congress meets it must reform Medicare D as it applies to the dual-enrolled population. Right now it is completely broken.
Tom Cuddy