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More Medicare

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It’s possible that the rollout of Medicare Part D is one of the worst policy initiatives in American history. When Hilzoy at Obsidian Wings, who’s been on this story like suck on Cleveland, is eating, spleeping sleeping or at work you can get your dose of outrage at TPM Cafe’s new Medicare blog. Read, weep, adjust your voting habits accordingly.

Reader Interactions

17Comments

  1. 1.

    demimondian

    Hey, Tim, you’re speeling needs sum sergury: “spleeping” is not a word, as far as I know…

  4. 4.

    Steve

    It’s like the perfect marriage of incompetence and corruption. At least there’s a bright side to the fact my grandma doesn’t take her medication any more.

  6. 6.

    srv

    How can I adjust my voting, one side put this nightmare in, the other side wants to expand it.

    At Diebold you will find a device for changing the balance of power. It only takes one man to start a revolution…

  7. 7.

    ppGaz

    It’s possible that the rollout of Medicare Part D might be one of the worst policy initiatives in American history.

    Take it from a Medicare-participating household on this blog: We knew it was fucked up a year ago. It’s not like the potatoheads weren’t warned that this could be a disaster in the making.

    “We couldn’t have anticipated that the (rollout, levees, whatever) would fail?” Bull. It’s Katrina II.

    Honestly, I don’t think you’ve seen the worst of this program yet. Wait until it plays itself all the way out.

  8. 8.

    Richard Bottoms

    How can I adjust my voting, one side put this nightmare in, the other side wants to expand it.

    Oh please, the side that want’s to expand it is really interested in making the program work. The other side doesn’t give a shit and would be quite haappy for such programs to not only shrink, but disappear.

    I think best describes your side:

    Grover Norquist’s Bathtub

    For years we have been hearing conservative critics of American government deride the civil service; portray government itself as a force for bad; and
    promise a world with less government. This message has been accompanied by pledges to reduce taxes whenever possible, and a persistent reckless unwillingness to level with the American people about what ‘less government’ looks like. Instead we have been treated to absurdities like ‘it’s not the government’s money, it’s your money.’ Although it should be noted that this absurdity was true with the tax cuts: most of the money given as a gift to the ultra-rich was money that working Americans had been paying in to Social
    Security to ensure income after retirement. This may indeed match the Conservative vision, but this reverse Robin Hood behavior seems to be all that government would be capable of if it were indeed, as Grover Norquist desires. “small enough to drown in a bathtub.” Well Grover, we’ve found your
    bathtub. It’s what we got when we poured a whole lot of Lake Pontchartrain water through a broken levee and into the City of New Orleans. And, Grover, bad news. It appears that what is getting drowned is your radical, mean-spirited vision of a return to the Hobbesian uncertainty of the 18th, or perhaps 17th, century.

  10. 10.

    JohnTheLibertarian

    Huh. My parents are saving a ton of money on it. They seem to like it just fine. Seems this is another instance of piling on.

  11. 11.

    Pablo

    The other side doesn’t give a shit and would be quite haappy for such programs to not only shrink, but disappear.

    Which explains why they created it: because they want it to disappear. Riiiiight.

    Anyone ever seen the government implement anything that went well?

  12. 12.

    Angry Engineer

    How can I adjust my voting, one side put this nightmare in, the other side wants to expand it.

    This is why I don’t feel that I’m throwing my vote away when I pull the lever for a third-party candidate.

  13. 13.

    Tim F.

    Anyone ever seen the government implement anything that went well?

    Yes. Medicare.

    So what happened on the day that this complex program (Medicare) was implemented? Thousands of senior citizens simply went to the hospital and got the health care they needed. “There were no crises that I remember,” says Yale University political scientist Theodore Marmor, who worked in the office overseeing Medicare implementation and went on to write The Politics of Medicare, the program’s definitive history. Newspaper accounts from the ’60s back him up. Under the headline “medicare takes over easily,” a Post writer described the program’s first day as “a smooth transition, undramatic as a bed change.” Three weeks later, the Times affirmed that “medicare’s start has been smooth.”

  14. 14.

    tbrosz

    Wow, the New York Times and Washington Post gushed over the implementation of socialized medicine. Who’d have guessed?

    I didn’t want to see this new prescription package passed, either the Republican kludge, or the Democratic pharmaceutical price-control package. Our nation needs another entitlement like a Channel swimmer needs an anvil. But somehow I suspect that if this identical program had come from the desk of President Al Gore, the reception in the media would have been different.

    I’m seeing a lot of anecdotal stories. Anybody got any overall statistics on how this is working? Including changes over the month?

  15. 15.

    tbrosz

    What should have been done is exactly what should have been done with other entitlements, which is to create a program that helped those seniors who actually had trouble paying for their medicines. On the TPM site, we have this article, which complains that over half the seniors aren’t signing up. Why? Mostly because they don’t need it or want it. Prior to the passage of the bill, most seniors already had sufficient coverage for prescriptions from various government and private sources.

    In other words, this whole thing wasn’t really necessary, and the Republicans should replace it with a need-based program.

  16. 16.

    srv

    In other words, this whole thing wasn’t really necessary, and the Republicans should replace it with a need-based program.

    It is a need-based program. The Pharmacos need it.

  17. 17.

    Larry

    JohnTheLibertarian Says:

    Huh. My parents are saving a ton of money on it. They seem to like it just fine. Seems this is another instance of piling on.

    Your parents (and everyone else) are paying the first $250 as a deductable, $500 of the next $2,000 as a Co-Pay, and then EVERY PENNY between $2,250 and $5,100 aka The Donut Hole. (After that, Plan Disaster pays 95%)

    Added to that is their monthly cost for enrollment (it varies – but around $25 per month).

    So;

    Deductable = $ 250
    Co-Pay = $ 500
    $25 x 12 = $ 300
    Donut = $2,850

    Total = $3,900

    Your folks are paying $3,900 of their first $5,100 in drug costs.

    How is that ‘saving a ton of money’?

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