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Paying for prescription drugs worries Medicare recipientsBy Brooks Jackson/CNN
March 16, 1999 CARROLL COUNTY, Maryland (AllPolitics, March 16) -- Like most senior citizens, Dorothy James has a pharmaceutical problem. Her problem is how to pay for five prescription drugs every day -- for diabetes, blood pressure and her heart. The bill is about $200 a month. "Well, in order to get medicine -- sometimes I have to miss a bill," said James. "It's called rob Peter to pay Paul." She does have Medicare, but it pays not a penny of her drug bill. Medicare was designed in 1965 -- the same year the '65 Chevy Impala rolled off the showroom floor. The car lacks some features you'd expect to be standard today. And so does Medicare: features like coverage for prescriptions. Drug prices are rising twice as fast as inflation. But drug coverage is getting harder for those on Medicare to find. One out of three Americans on Medicare have no coverage at all. What coverage exists is usually purchased at extra cost -- and limited. Also, many who have it are losing it. Wolfgang Rogalinski lost a foot to diabetes. He lost something else too. "Well, the company where I had prescription drug coverage went out of business," said Rogalinski. Now he pays the entire cost of his prescriptions and its a lot. "Since I had the first eye operation the first of January, it's over $400 a month," Rogalinski continued. It's not just a money problem, it's a national health problem. Rogalinski's doctor says almost every day he worries about the effect on his patients. "You feel as if by not putting somebody on a medicine that would make them less likely to have a hip fracture, make them less likely to have a stroke, make them less likely to have a coronary event, such as a heart attack, you feel as if you're almost ... committing malpractice," said Dr. Jason Tate. "Yet, the person can't afford that." A lucky few -- like Pierre Henry -- pay nothing. His bill would be about $300 a month for drugs to prevent stroke, reduce blood pressure and reduce arthritis pain. "My HMO pays 100 percent," Henry says. He's lucky to live in the Miami area where Medicare HMOs get such high payments from the government they can afford to offer generous prescription benefits. Not true in most areas, like Carroll County, Maryland. At the county senior center, about 800 seniors a year come to see Ann Allen seeking help paying for medication. "Our clients mostly have incomes of less than $800 a month. By the time you've paid for housing -- medicine at $400 a month is an extra," Allen said. Some just can't afford to follow doctors' orders. Allen continued: "You find seniors will say, 'Well, I'm supposed to take five pills -- one a day,' they'll take it three times a week." The president says he wants to do something. In a February speech in Arizona, Clinton said, "I would also like to see us begin to work into Medicare a prescription drug benefit... " But he does not say how he would pay for that. And it would be very expensive. Consider a benefit that would require patients to pay the first $250 a year for drugs, then only 20 percent of the next $3,750, and no more than $1,000 maximum out of their own pocket. That limited benefit would cost $30 billion a year, says the Congressional Budget Office. Meanwhile -- Remember Dorothy James? At age 73 she's going back to work. Why? "To pay for medications," she said. |
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MORE STORIES:Tuesday, March 16, 1999
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