"The Clowns Who Created It"

If ever there was "prima-facie evidence" that politicians should not be allowed to create ANYTHING it is the Medicare Prescription Drug Plan "created" by Congress. Picture this: you're an old person who can hardly move, so you can't work. You're trying to "get by" on $800 a month in Social Security and you can't even afford the medicine required to keep you alive (in this case, just ONE prescription costs $150 a month). The government comes up with a "plan" to pay most of your prescription costs and you're REQUIRED to "sign up. You have no choice. You see how stupid this "design" is, with prescriptions paid for until you reach a certain amount, then the payments stop, and don't kick in again until they reach a much higher amount. It's called a "Donut Hole" (Maybe they hope you'll die for lack of medicine while it's in effect). So you don't "sign up" for two years. Then they "sign you up" for a plan and things go along well for a while. Then your "plan" tells you they're going to "penalize you" for not signing up for 2 years, and if you ignore the notice that's an "indication of guilt." How stupid is that? They had it right in two panels in the comic strip "Crankshaft," where Crankshaft said of the Medicare prescription Drug Plan, "I think the 'Donut Hole' was in the heads of the clowns who created it." He's right. The way it "works:" "The expected costs are due to peculiarities in the Medicare benefit law that cause a gap in available coverage. Medicare is set to pay 75% of initial drug costs up to $2,250 after a $250 deductible for most seniors. But then the program pays nothing until drug expenses reach $5,100, after which the government pays 95% of all costs. The complete lack of coverage for drug spending between $2,251 and $5,100 is often called Medicare's 'donut hole' by Washington analysts and lawmakers. More than one-quarter of all Medicare beneficiaries are projected to have drug spending that falls in the donut hole's range, according to the Congressional Budget Office." What on EARTH would cause somebody with any degree of intelligence to create a plan with such an obvious flaw? The bureaucratic mindset, of course. This "flaw' will require more bureaucrats to "interpret" the "problem (that was created by the bureaucrats, of course) and "solve" it. Meanwhile those who have come to depend on the "plan" will suffer while the bureaucrats "solve" the problem created by their own ignorance. It will also create "demands" for socialized medicine. What's wrong with this picture? (Web MD, 6/1/04)