Email AARP to protest CEO Novelli endorsement of GOP Medicare to welfare

Please email

member@aarp.org

With :Contact Bill Novelli, Contact James Parkel ....NO TO GOP DRUG BILL

in the subject line

More than 50% of the Drug bill is yet more tax cuts to the rich (more tax free "medical" accumulation accounts that, ironically, will have the tax savings sucked into insurance company profits in the pricing of the insurance company service of providing an account)and to drug corporations and to general corporation tax cuts/subsidy to prevent current drug coverage being dropped.

Indeed, 61% of the 400 billion is expected to flow directly into more profits for Insurance companies and Drug companies. And for this bribe we get a benefit that pays nothing after the first couple thousand - the donut hole in the benefit - before again picking up payments after you are over $6000 in drug costs for the year.

http://www.reuters.com/newsArticle.jhtml;jsessionid=4GE1SV13MZCZICRBAELCFFA?type=politicsNews&storyID=3818990

The influential AARP seniors lobby, meanwhile, praised the earlier tentative agreement, with its leader Bill Novelli saying if the final version met its approval it would "pull out all the stops" to build support among its 35 million members.


From yesterdays posts:
Over half of 400 B for drugs is new tax cut:Tentative Medicare Pact Offers

Tentative Medicare Pact Offers Drug Benefits to Elderly


http://www.nytimes.com/2003/11/13/politics/13MEDI.html
Tentative Medicare Pact Offers Drug Benefits to Elderly
By ROBERT PEAR

Published: November 13, 2003


WASHINGTON, Nov. 12 — House and Senate leaders said on Wednesday that they had reached a tentative agreement on a bill to provide prescription drug benefits to the elderly, but many Democrats spurned it, saying parts of the deal would weaken the traditional government-run Medicare program. <snip>

COMMENT-The 3 major compromises to get a GOP Medicare benefit that has Medicare - beginning in 2006 - paying nothing for a few thousand dollars of bills above the first couple thousand that is partially paid:

1. A pilot project (four metropolitan areas and one of 11 large regions with a life of 3 years that could be extended for three by the Secretary of Health and Human Services) beginning in 2008 that would in specific cases tie Medicare premiums to bids by private plans, with states and metropolitan areas forced to participate in the experiment rather than the usual procedure of states or communities applying to be part of it. In the locations chosen for the test, elderly people could stay in traditional Medicare but would have to pay higher premiums if the program proved to be more expensive than private health plans, with low-income people exempt from increases in premiums, and for other beneficiaries, the increases being limited to 10 percent a year.

2.A trigger for congressional action (not required, but a vote would be required on new cost-control measures if general tax revenues account for more than 45 percent of Medicare spending. The program is expected to cross that threshold in 2016.

3. A plan for health care savings accounts that will move over a 100 billion of former tax revenues to Health insurance companies as they use the tax savings to sell asset accumulation accounts, with additional tax 96 billion employer tax incentives (16 billion specified with an additional to 80 billion in “to be written” incentives to keep seniors in employer plans that now provide health benefits and prescription drugs for retirees).

Sen. Edward M. Kennedy: “...(though it is being touted as a demonstration project, it) would be the demise of the Medicare system as we know it.(if traditional Medicare is forced to compete with private health plans –GOP saying it reduce Medicare costs and Dem’s saying such competition would leave only the sickest seniors in traditional Medicare, driving up their premiums and ultimately lead to the federal program's demise). "We cannot accept a proposal that is going to threaten the whole Medicare system…(with billions to employers to get votes for an) untried, untested, unworkable program….(the competition could disrupt health care and increase premiums for more than 10 million of the 40 million Medicare beneficiaries and)… would be the demise of the Medicare system as we know it."

http://ap.tbo.com/ap/breaking/MGADWPQ2ZMD.html

Democrats Critical as Deal Seems Near on Major Medicare Legislation
By Mark Sherman Associated Press Writer

WASHINGTON (AP) - Top congressional Democrats lashed out Thursday at an emerging compromise on creating prescription drug benefits for the elderly, while supporters said the focus should be on the big picture, not objectionable details. <snip>

"This is playing roulette with the security of our senior citizens," Sen. Edward Kennedy, D-Mass., told reporters. "We cannot and will not tolerate an undermining of Medicare as a result of this" legislation.

And House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., said the measure was "clearly government of the few, by the few, for the few," citing provisions she said would provide huge profits to the drug and managed health-care industries. <snip>

GOP leaders said they expected the backing of the politically influential AARP ...Daschle said he believed an AARP endorsement of the plan would prompt "a revolt within the organization." .... He said several other groups representing elderly Americans would announce their opposition to the plan later Thursday.... no change was expected in the ban on the importation of brand-name prescription drugs from Canada and other countries where they are often sold more cheaply than in the United States. Current law requires the Food and Drug Administration to certify the medicine's safety before imports are allowed.

that he left the design to those in Congress.