Having Medicare Part D be able to sort out cheaper Meds.. would have saved money

[Peacetrain]

and been the reduction Medicare and Medicaid needed to keep it solvent.

Having an inability to not shop for cheaper drugs was a 40% give away to the pharmacy companies of the Medicare Part D Bill.

[Booster]

1. Right on. And as I've mentioned in other posts, renting

machines like a CPAP ($500) for a cost of $175 a month is just stupid. It's not like you'll use the machine about a month and then send it back. It's a lifelong thing. Just stupid.

[Peacetrain]

2. I know.. the Part D is a give away to Pharmacy Corporations

It just drives me crazy..

[Igel]

3. Sure.

But if they buy it and retain ownership, then they're not a government entitlement program, they become the proud owners of assets that need to be inventoried and maintained. If they rent them, they don't own them so there's no inventory. If they break and kill somebody because of bad maintenance, it's not like Medicare is responsible.

On the other hand, they could buy them and just give them to you. You say it breaks but sell it. Do they want to see the old one? So some technician will come out to make sure it's broken and take it back with him--to do what?

And if they just give them to you, are you responsible for maintenance? How does that work, having the government maintain your private property? If you mess up settings or something, does Medicare have to hire somebody to go out and show you how to not mess things up? Do they have a bank of technicians to run diagnostics?

Then there are the cases where they do provide the equipment for life. My aunt was one of them. Lots of equipment. She used it for about a month and sent it all back. Somebody came out and collected the equipment. But if they hadn't, that would have been a fair amount of $ wasted for one month and I'm not sure what would have been done with it all. Bed, IV stands, a monitor, oxygen equipment. Oh, it was sent back because she died.

They did something similar with my father-in-law, but he lasted more than a month. Two months, actually, before going to the hospital, recovery center, hospital, and then morgue.

It's a tough call, but between maintenance and legal liability, there's probably more than enough cause for it even though it seems silly. Once lawyers and bureaucrats get involved, nothing's simple but nearly everything's absurd.

[Booster]

4. I understand it's a tough call, but everything that could happen

that you mention above is still a whole lot cheaper than renting the machine. I would (and I'm sure a lot of other people) would be glad to negotiate a deal with them where I buy the machine & they pay for supplies and fixing it. Just think of how much money they would save on that one deal, and there are millions of us old farts that have a CPAP. I, like most, would be willing to work with them because in the long run it's really our money to begin with.