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Medicare Fiasco Hits California Hard

As you may have heard, President Bush’s new Medicare prescription drug plan (sometimes referred to as Medicare D or Medicare Part D) went into effect on January 1. The consensus after nearly three weeks on the program? The new plan is disastrous. Governors are having to declare states of emergency in order to pay for prescription drug costs that Medicare should be covering. Here in California, Governor Schwarzenegger has realized there is a problem:

“The new Medicare prescription drug program is not working as intended,” said Schwarzenegger at a news conference Tuesday held jointly with lawmakers, pharmacists and other health advocates.

“Right now, people are going to the pharmacies to find out they’re not even in the systems,” he said. “People are being asked to pay hundreds of dollars for their prescriptions when they should be covered. In some cases, people are going without medication.”

Though I may argue with the “not working as intended” bit, the governor is mostly right. The state legislature has introduced a temporary measure to cover the prescription drug costs that the new Medicare plan is neglecting. The man who introduced this measure, Assembly Speaker Fabian Nunez, has called Medicare Part D a “national disgrace”.

It’s hard to argue with that assessment after hearing the reaction of many pharmacists throughout the country. I definitely hope to write a little more about this, because I have spent a some time over the last several days reading up on Medicare Part D. All I can say at this point is what a colossal failure this program is shaping up to be.