Editorial: Headache brewing for drug program

Wednesday, Nov. 16, 2005 | 7:31 a.m.

If there is one word that adequately describes the overall reaction to the new Medicare prescription drug program, which began enrollment this week, it would be "confusing." Many seniors are justifiably infuriated as they try to sort out the Rubik's cube-like complexities of the program.

The problem is that instead of simply offering drug coverage as if it were any other type of Medicare benefit, President Bush and the Republican-controlled Congress decided in 2003 to let insurance companies, with big subsidies from the federal government, administer the benefit to seniors instead.

Seniors have been overwhelmed by the bewildering array of plans, creating a great deal of anxiety. The Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard Public School of Health recently conducted a survey and found that just 35 percent of people 65 and older said that they either "somewhat" or "very well" understood the new drug benefit.

One of the interesting side notes to the creation of the drug benefit is that Bush and the Republican-led Congress steamrolled this legislation through at the end of 2003 so that they could take credit for it with the elections just around the corner. They thought they were being doubly cagey in delaying the full implementation of the program until after the 2004 election. That way, if problems arose, they wouldn't get blamed for it at the time.

Well, Bush and nearly all the Republicans in Congress safely won re-election. But now, with the 2006 elections looming, many of those same members of Congress who pushed so hard for the benefit likely will be having second thoughts. They will be facing the wrath of older Americans -- who vote in disproportionately high numbers -- if the drug program turns out to be a bitter pill for seniors to swallow.