Editorial: Chaos grips drug plan

Tuesday, May 25, 2004 | 8:46 a.m.

June 1 is when seniors can first enroll in President Bush's new plan to provide Medicare recipients with discounts on prescription drugs. For several weeks now seniors have been preparing for this by visiting a Web site run by the U.S. Health and Human Services Department, or by using a toll-free phone number, to do some comparison shopping of the benefits offered by the 73 companies providing discount drug cards. But not all is going according to plan.

Companies offering the cards have complained that the prices on the government-run Web site often are inaccurate, registering too high in most cases. Also, the prices that companies charge for drugs can vary from week to week, rendering comparisons meaningless. Seniors, especially those who haven't had to deal with managed care's complexities on this scale, have been frustrated by the misleading information and overwhelmed by the number of choices, making it impossible to make an informed decision. Add to all of this the pressure to make the right decision; once the seniors select a card, they can only switch one more time to another company.

The prescription drug discount card plan, an interim measure in place until the full Medicare drug benefit goes into effect in 2006, was quickly put together late last year. Bush and the GOP-controlled Congress hoped it would win over seniors to the Republican side this election year. The plan was touted as a way to let the free market bring about the best prices for consumers, but it's been a bust. The better path, one that would have been more convenient for seniors and saved the federal government more money, would have been to simply add prescription drugs as a benefit to Medicare with no need for a special sign up. The federal government could have used its tremendous purchasing power to negotiate the best prices with drug companies. But, when it came right down to it, the interests of the insurers and drug companies won out -- something Republicans h ad hoped voters wouldn't notice by November.