Health policy expert (and good friend) Bob Laszewski was interviewed on NPR this morning about the Part D program, bringing a little much-needed perspective to this over-spun topic. The net – if enrollment among “voluntaries” (those without present coverage) does not increase 500% the program is a disaster.
Here are the quotes from Judy Rovner’s piece:
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Jan
27
From a California Healthline piece today:
Republican Party strategist Nelson Warfield said that, “if Washington can’t get this prescription drug program right, voters aren’t going to embrace Hillary Clinton’s plans to have the government take over the rest of American medicine”
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Geez, you’d think they’d wait at least a month or two before pulling this one out. The cynics who thought Bush really did intentionally screw it up on Part D are gaining credibility.
Nice try Mr. Warfield, but this is actually the opposite of single payor health insurance, a subtlty that won’t likely be missed.
This plan is the government OUTSOURCING the drug coverage under Medicare. The problem IS NOT that it is designed to be a service for the recipients, as a government run program would have been, but rather that it IS DESIGNED to profit pharmaceutical companies and insurance companies. It’s all about dollars and cents and “market forces” are acting to make it a failure and money loser for the bug businesses it was supposed to make profitable.
No where near what Senator Clinton might propose, not a chance in heck that this is a planned failure, no where near a big win for the GOP. Deal with reality…