Wednesday, July 7, 1999 | 9:38 a.m.
LAS VEGAS - Loretta Wright braved a sweltering Las Vegas afternoon Tuesday to sit in a stuffy room packed to capacity with fellow senior citizens and catch a glimpse of Health and Human Services Secretary Donna Shalala.
Wright, a 68-year-old Cincinnati native who considers Shalala one of her heroes, joined nearly 150 other seniors and media types in a crowded Howard Cannon Senior Center to talk about health care coverage.
What they got was a pitch for President Clinton's latest health care proposals by Shalala, as well as Nevada's Democratic Sens. Harry Reid and Richard Bryan and Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev.
Clinton's recently announced plan to add prescription drug coverage to Medicare would be available as an option to all 39 million elderly and disabled beneficiaries starting in 2002, if Congress goes along with it.
Those who opt for the new benefit would pay a $24-a-month premium and the government would pay half the price of their prescriptions up to a $1,000 annual cap on federal payments.
By 2008, the premium would rise to $44 a month and the maximum government payment to $2,500 a year.
But Wright is skeptical that the Clinton plan will survive Congressional bickering - despite her great admiration for Shalala. Several others in the audience share her pessimism.
"I just don't think the President's program will fly," she said.
Melvin Douglas, a 75-year-old native of Memphis, simply said "Talk is cheap" and shook his head.
But Shalala insists that the President's proposal is a critical but "modest step" that has a good chance to pass with bipartisan support this year.
"No one would design a Medicare program today without drug coverage because we now substitute drugs for hospital stays and for different kinds of treatments," she said.
Berkley told the crowd that a report issued by the staff of the House Government Reform and Oversight Committee shows that the average uninsured senior in Southern Nevada pays 126 percent more for their prescriptions than do HMO customers.
But some critics of the plan say it will encourage employers to drop prescription drug coverage for their retired employees.
Shalala, however, says Clinton wants new financial incentives to help encourage companies to keep offering retiree drug benefits.
The president is also recommending that Medicare be funded until 2027 by transferring $723 billion from the recently announced federal budget surplus - expected to reach $2.9 trillion over the next decade. Medicare roles are expected to double by 2030.
Clinton's proposal would also eliminate the existing copayments and deductibles for preventative care now covered by Medicare. These services include colorectal cancer screening, bone mass measurements for osteoporosis, pelvic exams, prostate cancer screening and mammograms.
"It is so much less expensive if we educate people on their health risks and work on prevention," Berkley said.
For their parts, Bryan and Reid sang the praises of the Democrats' version of the "patients bill of rights" to great applause. That proposal is set to be debated in Congress on Monday.
Democrats would give patients the right to sue their HMO if they are harmed by treatment decisions. Democrats also want to give doctors, rather than insurance companies, the right to decide what care is medically necessary.
Las Vegas was Shalala's first stop in a week-long tour of Nevada, California, Minnesota and North Dakota to promote Clinton's plan.
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