Bush Proposes Quick-Fix Drug Plan For Low-Income Seniors

BY JOHN TOSCANO

Keeping a campaign promise, President George W. Bush last week unveiled a program to distribute billions of dollars to the states to cover prescription drug costs of Medicare members, mostly those at the bottom of the income ladder.

But the plan was not embraced by either Republicans or Democrats in Congress, even though the president indicated he was open to suggestions on how to implement the plan. Congressional opposition was based, in the case of Democrats, on the premise that prescription drug aid should be available to all Medicare beneficiaries at the same time. Republican leaders were less than enthusiastic about Bush’s proposal because they want a comprehensive drug coverage plan and they fear that approving a stopgap plan, such as the president’s would short-circuit support for a major plan.

Bush’s plan, offering immediate short-term help, focuses mainly on covering about a quarter of the 39 million Medicare beneficiaries, some 9.5 million members. All told, about a third of Medicare members have no prescription drug coverage.

Under Bush’s proposal, which he did not discuss in detail:

*Individuals with annual incomes up to $11,600 or married couples earning $15,700 a year would have all their drug costs covered;

*Individuals with incomes between $11,600 and $15,000 and married couples with incomes between $15,700 and $20,300 would have at least half their drug costs covered;

*Individuals with annual earnings over $15,000 and couples earning over $20,300 would receive financial assistance only if their annual drug costs exceeded $6,000.

The plan does not require states to spend their own money or to continue any specific level of state spending in order to get the federal funds being spent under Bush’s plan.

In New York State, which has the EPIC discount drug program, giving benefits to many low-income seniors, it appears that Bush’s plan would relieve the state of most of the cost incurred with EPIC. The federal funds could also be used to improve the program, which covers people over 50 years old.

New York Governor George Pataki joined other Republican governors in praising the proposal.

Pataki called the concept "a bold and compassionate plan." He noted that the EPIC program already covers 150,000 seniors and stated: "By providing states like New York the flexibility and financial support we need, President Bush’s plan will allow us to further strengthen our efforts to ensure that every senior receives the critical medicines they need."

MORE SENIORS STILL WORK: If you’re over 65 and retired and not working but think you might want to return to the work force you’ll be joining a large group that range in age up to 102, according to a story we read recently.

It all traces back to seniors living longer and still being healthy and agile, a healthy employment market and the pleasure of getting up and going out to work, sometimes on a full time basis.

According to the article, the 102-year-old is Robert Eisenberg of Los Angeles who’s a telephone salesman at a zipper factory.

Then there’s Dr. F. William Sunderman, also 102, who starts work each day at a Philadelphia hospital where he edits a medical journal. Sunderman, who holds four doctorate degrees, developed a method to measure glucose in the blood, a boon to diabetics, and thinks he may have been the first doctor to use insulin to bring a patient out of a diabetic coma.

Two years ago, he played his violin, a Stradivarius made in 1694, at his 100th birthday.

In the small town of North, South Carolina, Mario D. Fogel, 95, still works as a barber at the shop he’s operated since 1925; John F. Mally, 92, works 40 hours a week as an efficiency expert at a plant that makes steel strings for guitars and banjos; in Santa Claus, Indiana, Frieda Foretsch, 90, is a greenhouse manager, and in a sandstone quarry in Carroll County, Virginia, Walter Burnette, 89, works a power shovel eight hours a day.

Some major companies keep retirement age employees interested in working by establishing offices in their homes and major retail stores go out of their way to hire seniors because they have as much ability as younger workers and are also more reliable on a day-to-day basis and stay with the job longer.

Seniors, if you’re getting bored and grumpy just sitting and watching TV or going to a senior center every day, open up your newspaper to the employment section and start scouting around for a job.