Medicare Prescription Drugs: Stark Choices for Seniors

1. Medicare Prescription Drugs: Stark Choices for Seniors

2. The House GOP Bill • Ends Medicare as We Know It • Pushes Seniors into HMOs • Has No Limits on Premiums • Has a Massive Gap In Coverage, Costing Seniors Thousands

3. My ViewAny Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit must be: • Affordable – Must have affordable premiums, reasonable deductible – and must significantly reduce the price of prescription drugs • Guaranteed – With real, guaranteed, defined benefits – and no gaps or gimmicks

4. My ViewAny Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit must be: • Available to all seniors and disabled Americans on Medicare no matter where they live – rural or urban – or what their incomes are • Within the Medicare program – not a separate privatized plan that lets HMOs make all the decisions about costs and benefits

5. Their ApproachThe Republican plan is: • Not affordable – does not control the prices charged by drug companies – premiums and deductibles are not guaranteed and can increase • Not offered through Medicare – leaves the big HMOs and insurance companies in charge – not stable and reliable

6. Their ApproachThe Republican plan is: • Not guaranteed – private insurers can • change terms every year – coverage • gap takes away coverage for nearly • half of all seniors just when it’s • needed most • Same plan not available to all – • premiums can vary from plan to plan • and state to state

7. AARP Agrees "Congress and the Administration now have the opportunity to make one of the most important changes to Medicare since the enactment of the program - the addition of prescription drug coverage...Nevertheless there are a number of fundamental issues - primarily the program structure and the adequacy and affordability of the benefit package - that must be fixed before AARP and its members could support the final conference agreement." -AARP, July 14, 2003

8. Republican Plan Not Affordable Republican Medicare Prescription Drug Plan Does Not Help Average Medicare Beneficiary

9. Democratic Plan Provides True Relief For Average Medicare Beneficiary

12. GOP Plan Pushes Seniors Into Unreliable HMOs "AARP opposes a premium support structure, such as in the House bill, that could destabilize the Medicare program and require beneficiaries to pay even more out of pocket...Medicare+Choice experience strongly suggests that private plans will enroll younger and healthier beneficiaries, leaving older and sicker individuals to drive up traditional Medicare spending rates.“ -AARP, July 14, 2003

13. GOP Plan Pushes Seniors into Unreliable HMOs

14. GOP Plan Pushes Seniors into Unreliable HMOs

15. GOP’s Plan For Medicare “To those who say that [the bill] would end Medicare as we know it, our answer is: We certainly hope so.” -Bill Thomas, Chairman of the Ways and Means Committee, MSNBC, 6/25/03 “I believe the standard benefit, the traditional Medicare program, has to be phased out.” -Rick Santorum, Chairman of the Senate Republican Conference, 5/21/03 Former Majority Leader Armey called Medicare “a program that I would have no part of in a free world.” -Chicago Tribune, 7/11/95

16. "Do you think anybody in Washington has any idea what people on a limited income have to do to live?" Ed Human, 68, on legislation in Congress to add prescription drug benefits to Medicare. [Stolberg, New York Times, 6/24/03]

17. The Democratic AlternativeNo Gaps or Gimmicks • Premium: $25 a month • Deductible: $100 a year • Co-insurance: beneficiaries pay 20%; Medicare pays 80% • Out-of-pocket limit: $2,000 per beneficiary per year • Additional Low-income assistance

18. The Democratic AlternativeLower Drug Prices, Affordable Drugs for Seniors • Uses the collective bargaining power of Medicare’s 40 million beneficiaries to guarantee lower drug prices • Reduces drug prices for everyone by stopping big drug company patent abuses

19. The Democratic AlternativeGuarantees the Choices that Matter • Choice of prescription drug • Choice of pharmacy • Choice of doctor and hospital

20. Strengthening Medicare: Reliable coverage of affordable drugs through a guaranteed planNOT privatization