Acting on a promise made during last year’s election campaign, President Bush proposed a $48 billion, four-year plan to pay for medications for seniors. But the plan offered Monday doesn’t give all Medicare recipients access to a prescription drug benefit because it would cover only low-income elderly people.
The president said his “Immediate Helping Hand” proposal would tide over 9.5 million of America’s neediest seniors, even as he hopes Congress will offer a way to pay for prescription drugs for all senior citizens as part of broader Medicare reform.
The money would be sent to the states over four years to cover the costs of prescription drugs of low-income seniors.
But Families USA, a lobbying group that supports a universal drug benefit for seniors, says only half the states have assistance programs to help seniors pay for prescription drugs; the rest would be starting from scratch.
Democrats immediately attacked the proposal for covering only a limited number of Medicare recipients, while Republican leaders sent strong signals that the Bush plan likely would need to be strengthened before it could be passed by Congress.
“Congress wants to do something more comprehensive,” said Sen. Charles Grassley (R-Iowa), chairman of the Senate Finance Committee. “He [Bush] doesn’t object to that.”
With Rep. Bill Thomas (R-Calif.), chairman of the House Ways and Committee, and Grassley at his side, Bush said he was willing to consider a prescription drug benefit in a broader Medicare reform bill if Congress acted quickly.
“If in fact what they’re saying is that they plan on expediting a Medicare reform that would include prescription drugs for all seniors, then all of a sudden I begin to say well, gosh, that may make sense,” the president said.
“If they’re going to drag their feet, then I feel that it’s important for us to have Immediate Helping Hand,” Bush said. “There are a lot of seniors who need help when it comes to prescription drugs.”
The Bush plan would cover the full costs of prescription drugs for individual seniors with incomes of less than $11,300 a year and couples making less than $15,200.
The plan would pay part of the costs for single Medicare recipients making up to $14,600 a year and couples earning $19,700.
The president made the proposal for poor seniors during the campaign, but he also promised all Medicare recipients access to prescription drug coverage through the private health-care market.
“Every Medicare recipient must have a choice of health plans, including the option of purchasing a plan that covers prescription drugs,” his official campaign Internet site declared.
“I’m concerned the proposal does too little and will take too long in doing it,” said Sen. Edward Kennedy (D-Mass.). “Senior citizens deserve more substantial protection under Medicare. I hope the administration will work with us to develop a bipartisan program that can effectively meet the needs of all senior citizens.”
Over the past few years, Republicans and Democrats have been sharply at odds over how to provide a prescription drug benefit under Medicare. Democrats proposed a government-administered program in which the benefit would be guaranteed to all seniors, with the government serving as a giant purchasing cooperative.
The GOP pushed a plan that would require health-care companies to offer all seniors the option of obtaining prescription drug coverage, even though some companies said such an idea appeared unworkable.
This dispute over whether to approve coverage for prescription drugs through a plan with heavy government influence or one that relies almost entirely on the private sector has yet to be resolved in an almost evenly divided Congress.
Bush and his Democratic rival, Al Gore, hotly debated these approaches in the presidential contest.
The president has offered no hint of what kind of compromise might be crafted.
In their first debate in Boston Oct. 3, Bush said Democrats had pushed prescription drugs for seniors for eight years.
“It seems like they can’t get it done,” Bush said then. “Now they may blame other folks, but it’s time to get somebody in Washington who is going to work with both Republicans and Democrats to get some positive things done when it comes to seniors.”
Now that Bush is president, his challenge will be to break the gridlock that has held up passage of this benefit for so long.
His approach is to link a comprehensive drug benefit for seniors with broader Medicare overhaul, such as the plan advanced by a Medicare commission a year ago. Even GOP lawmakers agree this will be difficult.
Thomas, the new chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, said: “Our first and highest priority should be to modernize Medicare with a prescription drug benefit for all seniors. But finding consensus has been challenging and will take time.”
At the same time, he added that “Congress should remain open to ideas to give timely coverage for those seniors struggling to make ends meet.”
Bush’s plan, though, has been under attack by many prominent Democrats, including Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.), who as first lady produced a comprehensive health-care plan that Congress rejected.
Ron Pollack, executive director of Families USA, said Bush’s four-year, $48 billion plan for poor seniors is flawed and could in the end do more harm than good.
Pollack said the plan would pay for existing state pharmaceutical programs that subsidize prescription drugs for seniors.
But only half of the states have such programs, he said. In addition, he said, less than 1 in 4 eligible seniors takes advantage of these state programs.
“While we are encouraged that President Bush is talking about his willingness to consider a benefit for everybody, we think the structure of his proposal is going to make it more difficult to achieve,” Pollack said.
