Bipartisan Bill Eliminates Penalty In Drug Program
BY JOHN TOSCANO

Republicans and Democrats in the United States Senate announced on Monday that they had filed bipartisan legislation to eliminate the penalty for people who did not sign up for the Part D Medicare drug subsidy program by the May 15 deadline.

Weiner

That move came after top members of both parties in the Senate announced on the day after the deadline that they would support a bill to set aside the penalty. They predicted it would pass.

Meanwhile, a leading Republican in the House, Congressmember Nancy L. Johnson of Connecticut, said she would introduce a similar bill shortly. Johnson heads the key Ways and Means Committee and was an architect of the law that set up the Part D program in 2003.

Democrats in the House, including local Congressmembers Anthony Weiner, Carolyn Maloney and Joseph Crowley, are already on record in favor of waiving the penalty.

Under the Part D law, anyone who did not meet the deadline and signs up in the future for the coverage will have to pay a 7 percent increase on the premium, which amounts to about $2.50 a month as long as the coverage lasts.

The move to waive the penalty had started long before the deadline for signing up arrived. Many seniors complained of being confused about having to decide which plan to choose out of hundreds of choices. The plans offered by private insurers contained differences in premium prices as well as medications, making it difficult to find a plan which met an individual's needs.

Democrats in the House, including local Congressmembers Anthony Weiner, Carolyn Maloney and Joseph Crowley, are already on record in favor of waiving the penalty. Maloney

According to one published report, federal officials said there may still be as many as 4.5 million seniors who have not signed up for the program and might be affected by the penalty.

The officials said that almost 38 million Medicare members had joined the program.

The Bush presidential administration has been steadfastly opposed to waiving the penalty, but Democrats and increasingly more Republicans are calling for its elimination because it could become a major issue in this year's crucial congressional elections.

Because of President George Bush's fading popularity, political pundits are forecasting major gains by Democrats in the fall elections with the possibility the Republicans will lose control of the House and Senate.

The bipartisan bill introduced on Monday to eliminate the penalty is expected to be considered next week, according to Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton (D-New York), one of the bill's co-sponsors.

Clinton said the bill would completely eliminate the enrollment penalty for 2006. The measure would also provide $18 million for outreach and education programs to help seniors understand the program, their options and the signing up process.

Clinton said the Part D Medicare program was intended to provide more choices, "but instead it has left many with only confusion. This bipartisan bill would eliminate the financial penalty for our seniors and people with disabilities who need more time," she said.

On May 16, Senator Charles E. Grassley, an Iowa Republican and chairman of the Finance Committee, and Senator Max Baucus of Montana, the senior Democrat on that committee, jointly initiated the effort to eliminate the penalty.

Grassley said, "It takes time for people to learn about benefits available to them." He acknowledged that people who rushed to sign up before the deadline might feel it's unfair to drop the penalty, but he predicted the proposal would win swift approval in the Senate.

Baucus said, "It's time to cut people a little slack," according to the New York Times account in the May 17 issue. He said the program had been made needlessly complicated.

Crowley

Aspokesman for Bush said the administration would take a careful look at the proposed bill, and Secretary of Health and Human Services Michael O. Leavitt, whose agency runs the Part D program, said it was a policy decision that had to be made by Congress.

The Times story also listed several Republican Senators who are co-sponsors of the Senate bill.

In the House, Weiner (D-Queens/Brooklyn) had called for the penalty to be eliminated because, he said, "We're finding many seniors who say they're simply confused by the program."

Weiner and Maloney (D-Queens/Manhattan) had issued a study some two weeks ago which showed that only 11 percent of eligible New York City seniors had signed up for the drug subsidy program just prior to the deadline. An additional 73 percent of city seniors were already covered by their existing health insurance programs, the lawmakers said as they urged the Bush administration to set the penalty aside.

Crowley (D-Queens/The Bronx) said, "At the very least, the penalty should be postponed for six months or eliminated entirely. The enrollment process should have been made much more simple and less confusing for the seniors."

On the Republican side, Congressmember Johnson had predicted on the eve of the deadline that a bill to eliminate the penalty would have enough votes to pass in the fall. She told the Associated Press, "I think it's fair and reasonable to eliminate the penalty for 2006."