Medicare Reform isn’t Flying

Seniors aren’t thrilled with Bush’s Medicare reforms. Can Kerry take advantage?

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Even as a candidate in 2000, when he backed privatizing many a government program, George Bush touted the idea of adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare. When he finally signed a new prescription drug bill in December, Bush no doubt expected the move to help him win the support of elderly voters. But a new survey shows the bill’s limited scope has made it largely unpopular with Medicare recipients.

In a survey released Tuesday, the Kaiser Family Foundation found nearly half the Medicare recipients interviewed had a negative view of the Bush administration’s changes, and only 26 percent support them (By comparison, 73 percent like Medicare overall). Of the negative views, 81 percent said the problem is the new rules don’t go far enough. As Kaiser Foundation president Drew Altman told the New York Times:

“Views are decidedly more negative than positive. The law has not been the political plus that the president and Republicans had hoped for.”

That gives John Kerry a chance to increase his support among retirees, a population that narrowly backed Al Gore against Bush. The Kerry campaign plans a nationwide “Seniors for Kerry” outreach program, with plans to help the elderly with transportation to the polls and with absentee balloting. Democrats think the lukewarm reaction to the Bush health plan means those seniors will vote Kerry, and the candidate hammered on that theme Wednesday in Nevada:

“With rising health care costs and a dragging economy, our seniors and families are squeezed like never before…Seniors are cutting their pills in half, and we’re told the best we can do for them is a Medicare bill that’s riddled with waste and handouts to drug companies. We can do better.”

The Bush-passed Medicare reform takes full effect in 2006, though seniors can use prescription drug cards to save money on medicine before the full benefits are available. But it doesn’t let the Department of Health and Human Services negotiate for lower drug prices, and doesn’t allow for the importation of cheaper drugs from Canada. Both those ideas drew approval ratings of nearly 80 percent in the Kaiser survey, and Kerry has touted his support for both, citing drug prices that rose three times more than inflation last year:

“I call on the president to do what he should have done in the first place. I call on the president to get out of the way of Americans being able to import drugs from Canada at a lower price.”

Kerry is far from alone among politicians focusing on that issue. Vermont’s Republican Gov. Jim Douglas announced Tuesday that his state will be the first to sue the federal Food and Drug Administration after the FDA rejected the state’s plan to import drugs from Canada:

“The claims on which they’ve based this denial are, in our view, unsubstantiated, and we have no choice but to pursue any and all legal remedies available.”

Vermont asked the FDA in November to approve a plan in which the state would take medicine orders from residents and contract with a Canadian company to supply the drugs. But the FDA rejected the plan Monday, its latest attempt to block state governments that support importation.

Illinois Gov. Rod Blagojevich tried a similar program last year, only to receive an FDA rejection. A couple in that state has sued the FDA over its decision, but the state government has decided not to proceed without federal approval. New Hampshire Gov. Craig Benson has announced plans to import Canadian drugs for his state’s Medicare recipients, retired state employees and prison inmates. New Hampshire has also joined Minnesota, Wisconsin and North Dakota in linking residents with Canadian drug companies online, letting the citizens purchase the drugs on their own.

The Bush administration retains its opposition to drug importation, arguing seniors will come around once they personally experience the benefits of the December Medicare changes. But if Kerry can gain traction on the issue, there will be a new president when those benefits take effect.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with The Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate