ASSHOLES (and there's no better word than that) who endorsed George Bush's "donut hole" that causes people at a point where they need medication the most and don't have enough money to stretch between needs and kids in college, etc., while also having to spend obscene amounts on drugs.
Thanks a lot, AARP! They lost tens of thousands of members over that--and most never returned.
http://www.motherjones.com/politics/2008/09/medicares-poison-pill
Part D offers a disturbing window on the future of health care. For conservatives, it represents the sharp end of the stake they hope to drive into Medicare at large, destroying the largest and best single-payer health care program this nation has ever known. For progressives, it demonstrates the vast shortcomings of any health program—no matter how "universal"—that fails to defy Big Pharma and the insurance companies. For myself, perhaps the key lesson from dealing with Part D has been that the new plan doesn't have that much to do with ensuring drug access for seniors, but a great deal with securing the vested interests of the stakeholders—from the Bush administration and the pharma industry, all the way to groups like AARP.
.....The gap is also known as the doughnut hole, and it works like this. Whatever Medicare Part D plan you choose, you receive coverage up to the "initial coverage limit," a threshold based on the full cost of the drugs you've received (not your copay amount). In 2007, the standard was $2,400; in 2008, it's $2,510. After that you'll have to pay full freight for your drugs until you reach yet another level of spending, at which point Part D's "catastrophic" coverage kicks in. And guess what: According to the 2007 House oversight committee report, when beneficiaries are in the doughnut hole and paying full price, they don't benefit from the rebates regularly offered by pharmaceutical companies to insurers; instead, the companies pocket the discounts. Last year, according to the report, Part D insurers stood to receive a billion dollars in rebates on drugs that seniors had actually paid for on their own.
Most of the people who fall into the doughnut hole—4.2 million in 2006, the last year for which numbers were available—probably have no bloody idea when the big plunge is coming. I certainly didn't. But then it happened, last August: Suddenly, my three $6 generic drugs cost $28.03, $29.00, and a whopping $106.29 for the generic version of the antidepressant Wellbutrin. My $28 drugs were now $33 and $61, and even my expensive "non-preferred" drug went up a few dollars. And I still had to keep paying my plan premiums. My monthly costs more than doubled, from $169.50 to $357.76.
So, yeah....fuck AARP. They "berned" a lot of bridges with that piece of work.
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