LAT: California Orders Help for Elderly as Medicare Glitches Spread

State Orders Help for Elderly as Medicare Glitches Spread
California joins other states in giving seniors emergency assistance. Bush's signature program draws sharp criticism nationwide.
By Ricardo Alonso-Zaldivar and Peter Nicholas, Times Staff Writers


SACRAMENTO — California officials ordered emergency action Thursday to cover drug costs for 1 million elderly citizens, many of whom have been denied life-saving medications or charged exorbitant amounts because of glitches in the new federal prescription drug program.

The action by Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger's administration capped a day in which the Medicare prescription drug program — one of President Bush's signature domestic policy initiatives — came under sharp criticism from members of Congress and governors of both major political parties.

Critics said the program, which Bush has touted as the most significant advance in Medicare in 40 years, was fast becoming a public health emergency. California officials said that as many as one-fifth of the 1 million elderly, poor or disabled state residents who were switched into the federal program on Jan. 1 could be wrongly denied their medications because of flaws in the program.

In Illinois, Gov. Rod Blagojevich, a Democrat, took action similar to Schwarzenegger's, ordering state funds to be used to provide emergency drug coverage for the elderly. Arkansas Gov. Mike Huckabee, a leading figure among Republican governors on health policy issues, took a similar step Wednesday. Nine states, including California, have stepped in to fill the gaps in the federal program.

Bush has staked considerable political capital on the Medicare program, and Democrats were quick to seize on its problems. Sen. Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-N.Y.) criticized the program at a news conference as "a bad policy poorly implemented."...


http://www.latimes.com/news/local/la-me-medicare13jan13,0,5622306.story?coll=la-home-local

everything he touches...medicare was the most working program until * raped it and took money out of it for his lies to war...and he is and will do this to social security as well...

if we as a society can not protect those who worked and lived the american dream..who worked to build this nation as one of the greatest in the world..well that says alot about us doesn't it...

under * we are now forcing our elderly into third world conditions...

god help us...and god help the elderly..

will you see your senior mother or father starve to get their medications...you bet you will..

and will it occur more in the future because of * and the republicans..count on it!

pensions are going by the way side under this admin...

and i can assure you of one thing..i will have no sympathy for those who voted for this shit when they are homeless and die from lack of medications
because they did this ...to all of us!!

fly

to our country, in a few short years? Good post.

California Moves to Cover Gaps in Medicare

The Sacramento Bee
Posted on Fri, Jan. 13, 2006
http://www.montereyherald.com/mld/montereyherald/news/13618020.htm?template=contentModules/printstory.jsp

SACRAMENTO - The state of California said Thursday it won't stand by and watch some of its poorest and sickest citizens go without needed medicine.

Declaring an emergency, health officials announced that Medi-Cal will pay for prescription drugs for some low-income seniors and the disabled who have been unable to get needed medicine under Medicare's new drug plan. Two other states took similar steps Thursday, joining a rising tide of states that already have acted.

''This is an emergency situation. The state has the responsibility to act,'' said Kimberly Belshe, Secretary of the Health and Human Services Agency at a press conference. Relieved senior health care advocates say they believe the state's action will save lives.

Reports have poured in since Jan. 1 that many of the state's one million Medi-Cal beneficiaries have been unable to get needed drugs because Medicare and the private companies offering the new plan are overwhelmed. State officials promised emergency coverage for up to the next 15 days at a cost of $70 million -- adding that they want federal officials to pay them back.

operator (after checking her computer), gave me the name of one of the MOST EXPENSIVE plans (which oddly enough had "America" somewhere in its name). A lot of the plans offer a $0 yearly deductible. The one that Medicare (AFTER consulting their computers) referred to me, had a $25 deductible, and had drug costing almost TWICE that of most other plans I later checked-out on my own.

It could have been accidental, but I wonder...

However, future callers to Medicare "Part D" referral service be ware.

No, that's how it was meant to work.