Song in my head: Vietnam Vet with a cardboard sign...Sitting there by the left turn line...Flag on the wheelchair flapping in the breeze...One leg missing, both hands free...No one's paying much mind to him...The V.A. budget's stretched so thin...And there's more comin' home from the Mideast war....We can't make it here anymore.....................James McMurtry









Alter-Abled News

From Hit and Run, The Medicare Death Spiral

The L.A. Times notes that only 3.6 million seniors have signed up for the botched Medicare prescription drug program on their own. (The remaining millions were automatically transferred from state Medicaid rolls or already had coverage through Medicare.) The same article points to this Kaiser Family Foundation study, which reminds us that unless healthy seniors sign up in droves, the program risks becoming even more useless than it has been thus far. Behold the Medicare death spiral: If few healthy seniors sign up, premiums will jump. If premiums jump, fewer healthy seniors will sign up. And so on.

Survey says... Half of Seniors Will Not Enroll for Part D Benefits

FORT WORTH, Texas, Jan. 19 /PRNewswire/ -- DSS Research today announced the findings of the latest wave of its quarterly, national SeniorTrax(TM) survey. The third wave, completed in mid-December, concluded that half of seniors have absolutely no plans to enroll for Part D benefits. The survey asked seniors whether they had selected a Part D plan and were given three options of responding: Yes; No, but I plan on doing so; No and I have no plans to do so.


* Less than one quarter (24%) said they had chosen a Part D plan. They
were almost evenly split between stand alone PDPs (54%) and MA-PDPs
(46%).
* Less than one quarter (23%) said they had not chosen a Part D plan,
but intend to do so.
* Over half (53%) said they had not chosen one and have no plans to do
so. (Current coverage: Medigap - 37%, Medicare Advantage - 47% and
Medicare Only - 66%).

An interesting personal account displaying the numerous hassles seniors and alter-abled folks are having with their drug coverage. LINK

We carefully enrolled early in Medicare's new prescription drug plan and expected everything to go well for us, unlike others who failed to dot the "I"s and cross the "T"s.
I should have become a little suspicious when Humana --- which Medicare.gov indicated was Jane's best plan among 41 available --- sent us a booklet purportedly listing participating pharmacies in our region. The booklet was for Arizona. But, no sweat, our pharmacists were participating in Humana's plans.
In early January, we went to pick up a prescription refill. "You'll have to pay for this (up front) because Humana requires a special letter from your physician before they will cover this medication."
How the heck are we supposed to know that? We listed her drugs before enrolling in the plan. Presumably Humana's formulary included each medication and no further action was necessary.

Another interesting account of the Medicare drug bill disaster wreaking turmoil....LINK

Monday may be the lucky day for Curtis Burgess. Finally, he has the attention of someone at the state Medicaid office who has promised to help him.For three months, the Natchez mental health patient has been in turmoil because of changes to his Medicaid prescription assistance.
On Jan. 1, the most sweeping changes in health care in decades went into effect for both Medicaid and Medicare recipients. Like millions of other Americans affected by the new plans, Burgess has been at sea about his coverage.