Medicare drug plan needs major overhaul

When the Bush administration was working out plans to include a prescription drug benefit as a part of Medicare, certain details were in the cards.

The system would be based on the market, with private insurers offering competing plans to consumers. The program would be phased in, with initial savings of between 10 percent and 25 percent. And the new program would bring Medicare into the 21st century.

The program - with its predetermined elements - would be tested with discount drug cards that would be available to Medicare beneficiaries as a sort of test of the real thing. But with the actual program set to begin in earnest, a study of the pilot program has shown that what was in the cards was badly lacking.

A report released on Wednesday by the Government Accountability Office demonstrates that the discount plan has not been at all what it was stacked up to be. That is not only a problem in itself, it also bodes exceedingly ill for the actual program. If the discount drug cards were meant to be a sort of spring training for the inclusion of prescription drugs as a part of Medicare, the season that is at hand is looking dismal.

A few findings from the GAO study should prove illustrative:

The actual savings afforded from use of the cards? No one knows. The actual number of Medicare beneficiaries taking part in the pilot program? Far, far fewer than had been predicted. Add to those: significant misinformation, purchases of forbidden drugs and general confusion - to name but a few. The discount drug cards, the foundation of the full Medicare prescription program, have simply not been working.

The Medicare drug plan is an ill-structured, overly complex program that will cost hundreds of billions of dollars without delivering its intended benefit. The discount drug cards have demonstrated that beyond all doubt. Congress has got to get back to work on the program, admitting that what was passed into law is not going to work as intended.

The idea is to allow Medicare recipients to obtain prescription drugs without going broke. That's a fairly basic notion. Lawmakers must remember that when they look back at the law.