My Mom, Sheila, has asked me to thank each of you for the extremely
generous and completely unnecessary gift of free high-end
pharmaceuticals.
Mom, a 79-year-old confined to a wheelchair and afflicted with a
number of chronic illnesses, resides in a nursing home in rural
Oregon. She uses an average of 17 different prescription drugs each
month.
In 2005 these cost her, uh, well, let's just say roughly the same
amount as a pretty good car.
But this year, thanks to your largesse, Mom will save several thousand
dollars. She signed up for Medicare Part D and bought an Aetna
insurance policy that covers most of what she needs. The premiums are
low, the coverage excellent and her savings staggering. You made this
possible.
Essentially, your tax dollars have been transferred to my Mom, even
though you may have a lower income than her.
I'm not saying my Mom is undeserving. She's a nice lady - mostly - if
you can overlook the fact that she voted Republican for 50 years and
occasionally snatches a piece of pie off another resident's lunch
tray. She's a decent and feisty citizen. She's always paid her own
way, and she can afford to continue to do so.
It's hard to be old and sick, but it's worse to be old, sick and poor.
My fortunate Mom has the resources to pay for her own prescriptions.
But now she doesn't have to, because Medicare Part D, like welfare, is
an entitlement. But unlike welfare, it is not means-tested. Even the
wealthiest can get lush benefits.
There are trade-offs.
The decision to buy drugs for my Mom means that we can't afford to buy
other things for other people. Instead of the benefits my Mom receives
from the federal government (which is, after all, every taxpayer), you
could pay for a significant quantity of medication for someone who
can't now afford it, or provide preventative health care services such
as childhood immunizatios or smoking cessation counseling for people
who need it.
Now, Sheila's my Mom, so I want her to get every benefit she's
entitled to. But if she were the "decider" here, she'd choose to apply
those thousands of dollars in benefits to people who need them, not to
herself.
She'd advocate a more thoughtful investment strategy for public health
care dollars. And she'd oppose a minor repairs approach that makes
marginal improvements without addressing the biggest issue: resource
allocation.
If we were starting from scratch, figuring out what to do with the $80
billion we'll spend on Medicare Part D this year, not to mention the
nearly $1 trillion state and federal governments will spend on health
care programs in 2006, what would we choose to buy?
Would federally subsidized prescription drugs for Sheila and others
like her who can afford to pay for their own be a high priority?
Or would we prefer to invest in preventative health care for the
children of working poor families and basic insurance for those now
going bare?
Like I said before, hey, thanks. It's a great gift. But you really
shouldn't have.
I mean it.
Labels: No Prescription, Online Pharmacy, Prescription Drugs
# posted by Network @ 12:15 PM
