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This just in (NYTimes as reported on Yahoo):

Medicare Plan for Drug Costs Bars Insurance

WASHINGTON, Dec. 6 Medicare beneficiaries will not be allowed to buy insurance to cover their share of prescription drug costs under the new Medicare bill to be signed on Monday by President Bush, the legislation says.

Millions of Medicare beneficiaries have bought private insurance to fill gaps in Medicare. But a little-noticed provision of the legislation prohibits the sale of any Medigap policy that would help pay drug costs after Jan. 1, 2006, when the new Medicare drug benefit becomes available.

This is one of many surprises awaiting beneficiaries, who will find big gaps in the drug benefit and might want private insurance to plug the holes just as they buy insurance to supplement Medicare coverage of doctors' services and hospital care.

Congress cited two reasons for banning the sale of Medigap drug policies. Lawmakers wanted to prevent duplication of the new Medicare benefit. They also wanted to be sure that beneficiaries would bear some of the cost.

And how!

• First of all, those with medigap insurance are bearing the cost. Insurance is about redistributing risks, not evading costs (incurred by the pool of insured).
  
  
• Second, it means it's impossible to get coverage for the no-benefit-range when drug costs are between $2,200 and $4,800. Therefore, seniors will face the possibility of paying out-of-pocket amounts up to (and occasionally beyond) $3,600.
  
  
• Third, there are some drugs that will be classified as "non reimbursable", which means if you are unlucky to need them, you will have to pay for them yourself (and these drugs cannot be covered by secondary insurance either).
  
  
• Finally, the Medicare drug plan does have an insurance aspect to it - since seniors will be paying $420 annually in premiums. As Gregg Easterbrook has written:

  ... the $420 premium pays for the $1,444 reimbursement that a senior otherwise wouldn't get ...

  But to compliment that, the 30% of seniors with drug costs under $830/yr will be paying more than if there were no drug plan at all.

PREDICTION: It's always risky to predict the future, but this Medicare bill is looking more and more like bad news for the Republicans.

ADDENDU M: Vox Populi (from the message thread on Yahoo associated with this story)

	age according to Yahoo profile
LINK	38	Seniors Screwed I thought this bill was supposed to help all seniors with the cost of prescription drugs. It seems it will cost seniors more money once they lose their gap coverage which several of my older relatives now buy. The big winners here are the drug manufacturers and large pharmacy chains. I am dumbstruck by the assertion that buying gap insurance is so that seniors bear some of the cost as the insurance they buy is not free and many cannot take on this extra burden. This is your classic money grab by the rich for the rich because they think they are the only ones who deserve money besides bush is in power and now they can steal legally.
LINK	55	Re: Seniors Screwed I agree with you 100%.That is exactly why I dropped my membership in AARP.I couldn't believe they were supporting such a horrible bill.
LINK	56	Re: Seniors Screwed I think we need to start an association that will supplant AARP and will truly represent people over 55!! Anybody willing to help get such an organization going? My e-mail address is on my profile. Write me!
LINK	52	Hey, Thanks........................ for screwing the little guy once again congress. Rich Congressmen have free health care & poor seniors are forced to choose between eating & taking their medications. Its sad, truly sad!
LINK		Re: Seniors Screwed Check out http://www.retiredamericans.org/ , which has already trashed AARP for their double-cross of senior citizens. As others have pointed out, AARP basically exists for selling seniors their own insurance policies, so anyone who thinks that they are a "senior advocacy" organization has already found out that they are anything-but. We will be cancelling our AARP membership, and have already called them to complain about their behind-closed-doors endorsement of the Republican Medicare bill. I can only hope the huge number of senior citizens votes with a vengence to throw the GOP bast*rds out of office and return them to minority party status in Congress and to defeat Dubya, who is perhaps the worst, dumbest, most partisan President in the history of the United States.
LINK		Exactly WHO did these bill benefit ....and why would a thinking person vote for it ....man, we need smarter, pac-free politicians.
LINK		BUSH invented making grandma cry! So grandma, you need some athritis medicine and can't afford it with the medicare changes and want to get insurance to cover the gap? Tough crap grandma, your boy Bush just shagged you rotten! Just look at the benefits grandma. You croak faster and your less of a burden on social security. Vote for Bush and its a vote for four more years of making your grandma cry!
LINK	28	Thanks for rushing the bill through, W You've just pissed off about every voting senior and guaranteed that you won't get reelected, saving the country another four years of government by, for, and of the highest bidder. Adios, @$$hole!
LINK		REMEMBER: BUSH & GOP WROTE THIS BILL in closed door sessions that excluded the Democrats in Congress. They did it for the benefit of the pharm-HMO-insurance industries who bribed them to do so. They did it under Bush's direct orders. Then they bribed, threatened and strong armed the bill through Congress. So seniors, focus that rage on Bush and the GOP in Nov. 2004 like they deserve. Vote the bastards out of office. Vote for Dr. Dean and a Dem Congress and you will get the medicare plan you deserve and need and already paid for. When you are looking for someone to blame for this atrocity- blame those responsible for it Bush and the GOP Congress. They don't care about you or any other American, all they care about is paying off the bribes they got in the form of "campaign contributions" from industry. Yes you definitely got screwed GOP/Bush style. Now get even.
LINK		Re: The way I see it I really get tired of people slinging the word *entitlement* around as a euphemism for welfare...this is lingo that Reagan/Bush invented to start divisiveness between the older and younger generations. The truth is Social Security, Medicare, and Disability are mandatory insurance policies that I have paid into all of my life before I became disabled..THEY ARE NOT *entitlements*! Welfare and Food Stamps are welfare and they go to about 5% of our entire population and 80% of that 5% are children. Get off the *blame the other citizen* game that the GOP has been pushing for years to gain more and more power. And remember, a vote for anyone other than a Democrat is a vote for the GOP...they enjoyed funding Nader and the Green Party in 2000 and they'll do it everytime they can to win at any cost.
LINK		Put the bastards in washington on medic Put the bastards in washington on the medicare and social secruity that I've paid for for fifty five years and you see a bunch of changes in the system. Instead they draw an outrages retirement and have a great medical system that I also paid for. Those worthless bastards never earned a clean dollar in their lives, but continue living on the dole of the hard working honest people like myself. I think it is time some BIG, major changes were made.
LINK		Get it Yet? Bush is screwing you When will all the neocons realize that Bush is screwing EVERYONE except his big money special interest friends.
LINK		This is why they snuck this bill in... in the dark of night and pushed it through with promises and threats from the repub "leadership". You just watch, there will be more bombshells as people finally are able to read this bill and see what a load of crap it is. This bill will kill seniors, pure and simple. Vote Repubs out in 2004, please, please, please. Signed by a primary care physician in California.

posted by Quiddity at 12/07/2003 12:28:00 AM