Medicare Handbook Blooper Fuels Confusion
“The administration has created a drug benefit that is so confusing, even the people running Medicare can’t get it right,” so judged Senate Minority Leader Harry Reid, (D-NV) after learning the new Medicare handbook contains an error.  Titled “Medicare and You,” the guide designed to aid seniors mistakenly tells beneficiaries that if they qualify for an extra subsidy for their drug costs, every plan is available to them with no monthly premium.  The truth is only 40 percent of the plans have no premiums.  The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Services explained they will not mail a corrected page to the 35 million seniors who will receive the handbook, but will instead rely on insurance companies to correct the misinformation.

A USA Today/CNN/Gallup Poll taken last week reports that 61 percent of American seniors can’t understand the new Medicare drug plan.  A paltry 37 percent understand the program at least somewhat.  The administration should also give pause to poll figures showing 54 percent of those questioned do not plan to enroll.  The government has said it hopes to sign up 30 million of the nation’s 42 million Medicare beneficiaries.

“If the people who gave us this flawed drug benefit cannot correctly explain it, how can they have high hopes people will enroll?” asked Edward Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance.  “This early confusion signals the problems seniors are bound to encounter.” 

Pension Bill Stalled in Senate
Senate action on a pension overhaul bill, S. 1783, stalled Thursday due to divisions between members of the committees that oversee pension legislation.  The bill, after the committee process, has provisions in it that do not make past defined benefits conversions to cash balance plans automatically permissible.  These provisions help older workers and those near retirement.  There is also relief for certain airline industry plans by allowing them to spread their contributions over a number of years.  However, other provisions in the bill are troublesome to retirees and workers covered by defined pension benefit plans, especially for single employer plans.  The Alliance, along with a broad coalition of labor and employer interests, is supporting a bipartisan amendment offered by Senators Barbara Mikulski (D-MD) and Mike DeWine (R-OH).  The amendment would allow pension plans to make interest rate assumptions over several years when calculating contributions and also eliminate a provision in the current bill that ties plan contributions to the creditworthiness of the sponsor corporation regardless of the health of the pension plan.  Some Senators objected to including this amendment in the bill.  In the House, the Education and Workforce Committee passed a bill in June, in which the Alliance found several objectionable provisions that the Ways and Means committee must first take up before House floor action.

Medicare Drug Plan May Hurt WI Seniors
Tens of thousands of seniors living on modest incomes in Wisconsin may wind up paying more for their medications under the new Medicare prescription drug plan than those purchased from the WI run SeniorCare program.  By one estimate, someone with an income of $14,987 a year, who spends $250 a month on prescription drugs under SeniorCare, would spend about $1,300 a year under the new Medicare benefit.  The SeniorCare program is designed to help seniors with incomes less than $15,300 pay high drug costs, and is funded by a mix of federal and state money, annual fees and co-pays.  Wisconsin hopes to offer SeniorCare as an alternative to enrolling in a Medicare prescription plan, but is still awaiting federal approval.  To win federal approval they must show that SeniorCare won’t cost more than the Medicare benefit.

“Let’s hope this doesn’t set the stage for what’s to come,” said Ruben Burks, Secretary-Treasurer of the Alliance.  “Successful programs that today save seniors money on their prescription drugs should not be shut down just so this administration can claim more enrollees in their program.”

Some Want Seniors to Pay for Katrina
The debate over how to pay for Katrina clean-up has sparked bitter and public divisions within the Republican Party.  In a desperate attempt to re-assert his image as a fiscally responsible conservative, President Bush has called on Congress to quickly pass budget cuts designed to keep the deficit from soaring to even newer heights.  Senate Budget Chairman Judd Gregg (R-NH) urged the administration to revisit its position with the Medicare drug benefit, saying the program is “already $43 billion over budget and it hasn’t even started yet.”  Fiscal conservative Sen. John McCain (R-AZ) is seeking to delay the benefit.  House and Senate Democratic leaders argue that eliminating tax cuts for America’s most wealthy would go a longer way in reducing the deficit.