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President Touts Medicare Drug Program to Seniors in Florida

Posted on: Tuesday, 9 May 2006, 21:04 CDT

COCONUT CREEK, Fla. _ With the enrollment deadline six days away, President Bush urged senior citizens at a counseling event Tuesday to take advantage of Medicare's new prescription drug program.

During a 30-minute stop at Broward Community College, Bush chatted with a hand-picked group of 40 to 50 seniors. He said the Medicare coverage would save them on their drug costs.

"This is a good deal for seniors," Bush said, standing in front of a blue Medicare bus with five retirees. "We're traveling the country reminding people there's a fantastic opportunity for our seniors . . . that will save people a lot of money."

Bush has been promoting the drug plan like a salesman as Medicare nears the May 15 deadline for most seniors to sign up without facing a financial penalty. The penalty is 1 percent extra on the monthly premium for every month of delay beyond the deadline, although low-income Medicare recipients can sign up at any time without penalty.

Bush arrived at the college at 8:30 a.m. to watch federal and state officials advise seniors about the drug program, although most of the seniors said they had already signed up. Medicare counselors sitting at blue tables used wireless laptop computers to show the retirees how to sort through more than 100 coverage plans available in South Florida.

"You saving some money?" Bush asked Larry Fauci, 77, chief of the volunteer Palm Beach Shores Fire Department, and his wife Judy.

"Well, I guess we're going to," Fauci replied.

He had signed up in January and hasn't used the benefit, and his wife signed up Tuesday but takes no medication. Fauci later said he was invited because he knows a federal Medicare counselor and has been involved in Republican party activities.

One woman told the president that before signing up, she had been buying drugs from Canada because of the big discounts compared to prices at her local drugstore. Bush laughed.

Retired property manager Frank Perkins of Fort Lauderdale told Bush he and his wife, Patricia, have been saving about $400 a month on their drug costs since the program started Jan. 1, although they had not yet reached the coverage gap, when the plan stops paying and recipients pay 100 percent of drug costs.

"We'll worry about that when we get to it," said Perkins, 74, who was recruited to attend by leaders of the Coral Ridge Presbyterian Church in Fort Lauderdale, which strongly supports conservative elected officials and viewpoints.

An estimated 38 million of the 43 million Medicare beneficiaries now have drug coverage, either by signing up for the Medicare drug plans, through Veterans Affairs benefits, federal employee plans, their employers or company retiree coverage. About 2.5 million of 3 million in Florida have enrolled.

Democrats have criticized the administration for pressuring seniors to join, and have urged the president to push back the deadline to give seniors more time to sort through the complicated program.

Bush rejected such a delay at a similar event later in Sun City, Fla.

Other critics say the government has not done enough to get low-income people to enroll. The advocacy group Families USA released a report Tuesday showing that only one-quarter of low-income seniors _ 1.7 million out of 7.2 million eligible for special subsidies _ have enrolled in the program.

Medicare, the federal health insurance program for the elderly and disabled, hopes to sign up another 1 million before the sign-up deadline Monday, said Mike Leavitt, secretary of Health and Human Services. He accompanied Bush on his Florida stops.

Leavitt said the government's target audience in the final week of enrollment were seniors who take little or no medicine and think they don't need the coverage, those who mistakenly think the program is only for low-income people, and relatives of seniors who have not yet signed up.

"It would be just a shame to have them miss out on the opportunity," Leavitt said.

Recipients who already signed up can switch to other drugs-only plans without penalty before May 15 and can switch among HMOs without penalty until July 1.

Unlike his visit to a Fort Lauderdale, Fla., campaign fundraiser Monday night, the president saw few protesters on his 25-minute motorcade ride from the Marriott Harbor Beach hotel on Fort Lauderdale's beachfront, which snarled rush-hour traffic. One man along the route flashed a sign reading "Bush Lets People Die."

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(c) 2006 South Florida Sun-Sentinel.

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Source: South Florida Sun-Sentinel

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