Absolutely. Medicare Part D is a scandal. As a senior I am forced to purchase insurance with all the pitfalls herein laid out (plus the "donut-hole") with no oversight of premiums charged. Only those too poor to purchase privately are given protection on premiums - which are Medicare-paid for them.

My premiums have risen 100% and more each year! Benefit? Only to insurance companies!

Mary K. Lund

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From: timothyb115 <timmyb@scicable.net>
To: uhcan-mn@yahoogroups.com
Sent: Monday, March 30, 2009 3:30:13 PM
Subject: [uhcan-mn] Quacks like a Hartford duck and walks like...

John... Thanks for the post.

Having not experienced firsthand what a mess Part D Medicare has caused in greater Minnesota, it's understandable that you would raise questions about the import and impact of what AARP (the insurance company) has done for seniors. As the biggest visible backer of the Medicare Modernization and Improvement Act of 2003 (there's a misnomer if ever there was one) I hold AARP as supremely accountable for delivering "D" to America's seniors. It wasn't because they knew that seniors would get substantial prescription drug price relief. They also struck up a partnership with United Health (not your United Health, McGuire's United Health) in order to package their "plans" for senior Rx benefits. The new partnership allowed them to funnel billions of tax dollars into their coffers in the process.
Part D stats give or take:
„c 13% of seniors received substantial Rx help
„c 22% of seniors received improved coverage
„c 27% of seniors were left about the same as before Part D
„c The REST... received no help and were worse off than before Part D (this wasn't a great piece of legislation for seniors or the American public).

Community agencies and non-profits were not prepared for the deluge of seniors overwhelmed by the complexity of enrollment, re-enrollment and dis-enrollment in Medicare Part D. To further complicate matters, insurance companies began to cleverly package Part C (Supplemental Medicare also known as Advantage Plans...sheesh) plans with Part D plans and captured people's Medicare benefits.
If you want to spend a fun weekend, sit down with a senior in need and explain to them why they can't dis-enroll from a plan until their 45 day window at the end of the year. And¡K also explain to them that their insurance company has changed the formulary and their drugs are no longer covered under their Part D plan, and they¡¦re stuck for now. In many cases you¡¦ll have to remind them to keep paying their premiums even though they aren't going to get any Rx benefits until they can change plans during their open enrollment "window." Multiply these reminders to seniors (in one-to-one personal consultations) by a factor of 1,127. This is the number of seniors we have had to counsel and assist without the aid of any Med. Mod. Money to pay for our time (past 24 months). You now have a glimpse of what AARP and the the rest of the insurance companies have done just in east-central, rural Minnesota. These one-to-one (the best way to do it) consultations take, on average, 1.6 hours per session of our staff time initially, with a 1 hour follow-up usually required.

Bottom line: Based on the cost of the program, Part D could have and should have delivered Rx price relief to most seniors, but it didn't. It did deliver billions to the bottom line of insurance and drug companies like AARP in the process.
The good news is that compared to the messy and poorly executed rollout of Part D in 2003-04, the current state of the program, such as it is, looks pretty innocuous. Sadly, it¡¦s not.

Tim B.
7 County Senior Federation
GMHCC