Fred & Ethel, drug-plan shills

Free gym memberships, discounts for acupuncture therapy and vision-care reimbursements are among the offers health-insurance companies are touting in their multimillion-dollar advertising campaigns for Medicare prescription-drug plans.....

Marketing and operations for the Medicare prescription-drug benefit is big business. Aetna and PacifiCare Health Systems are spending $50 million each, while CIGNA is doling out $40 million. UnitedHealth Group’s budget is $75 million. Humana has already spent $80 million on marketing.
...
Republicans and the insurance industry have a lot riding on easing seniors’ concerns. If confusion envelops the drug benefit, Republicans — who rammed the bill through Congress in 2003 — will suffer at the polls in 2006.
...
PacifiCare joined with the company Deutsch and Robert Legato — who won an Oscar for his visual effects in the blockbuster movie “Titanic” — to re-create part of an “I Love Lucy” episode with Fred and Ethel Mertz to market its Medicare Rx plan.

“A pop-cultural reference makes a lot of sense,” said Eric Hirshberg, Deutsch co-president and chief creative officer, in an informational video about the making of the commercial. “It is very underutilized for this target. If Britney Spears makes sense for Pepsi, why not Fred and Ethel Mertz for PacifiCare?”

http://www.hillnews.com/thehill/export/TheHill/Business/120705_medical.html

but seniors are still very confused and undecided about the drug benefit. The fact that seniors can find more information by going online is laughable. My 87 year old mother has never been on a computer, and wouldn't know what to do with it.

Totally sucked, did not explain jack shit. What malarky. Or should I say blarky (bullshit+malarky).

are being used...instead of dead people.

to market their Part D plans says only one thing to me: that the Medicare drug "benefit" is designed to benefit the insurance and pharmaceutical industries, not medical "consumers" (we used to call them patients) . . . industry sees a lucrative windfall in this, and they're pulling out all the stops to take advantage of it . . .