Vicki Gottlich, an attorney with the Center for Medicare Advocacy, described some of the disturbing consequences of Medicare’s mind-numbing Part D prescription drug plan in a story by Ruth Mantell of Marketwatch:
The program’s complexities affect the ability of beneficiaries to understand the program, choose plans, pay premiums, benefit appropriately from the low-income subsidy, and utilize […]

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A new study says allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices would save $20 billion per year.
Well, it ain’t gonna happen, after Big Pharma put its bought-and-paid-for politicians to work last week to stop proposed legislation. Here’s a nice analysis showing, point by point, how the bill’s opponents distorted the facts in their campaign […]

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On April 1, CBS will air a “60 Minutes” expose on the impact of the drug lobby on Congress. CBS spoke with Congressmen Walter Jones, Dan Burton and others about the legislative session that voted the Medicare prescription drug bill into law. An excerpt:
“I’ve been in politics for 22 years and it was […]

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The Schwitzer health news blog points out:
A study in Health Affairs shows that more than half of the nation’s uninsured are ineligible for public programs such as Medicaid but do not have enough resources to purchase coverage themselves.
In a Health Affairs news release, lead author Lisa Dubay, now a research scientist at the Johns […]

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From a Mother Jones interview with Ohio senator-elect Sherrod Brown:
MJ: What do you want to do on the Health and Education Committee?
SB: FDA reform — wrestling the agency away from drug company influence. In my 14 years in the House, I’ve seen a very good agency, the Food and Drug administration — one of the […]

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Ezra Klein has a great post explaining why drugs purchased through the Veterans Administration are cheaper than those purchased by Medicare patients. He concludes with these eye-opening facts:
in 2003, The New England Journal of Medicine found the “socialized” VA better on all 11 metrics of care than fee-for-service Medicare …The National Committee for Quality Assurance, […]

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CanadaDrugTalk.com posts this quote from David MacKay, an international pharmacy expert and consultant:
The bottom line in 2007 is that enrollment costs are going up substantially, drug coverage is declining and the brand name coverage in the doughnut hole is being eliminated… Medicare D is an insurance program, not a benefit. As consumption increases, so too […]

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