Before
You Do the Walk ...
Do the Math!
Before
You
Do
the Walk ...
Do the Math!
by sonya hammond
These whiny senior citizens! You'd think we'd be so busy enjoying our special privileges, we wouldn't have the time or nerve to complain about anything.
Here we are, stuffing ourselves on luxury cruise ships, sunning on Hawaiian beaches, taking our 10% discounts for everything from movie tickets to air flights to Europe. What a life!
Apparently it isn't enough that thanks to medical science and our drug companies, the actuary tables give us life spans unimagined by our grandparents. And thanks to Viagra, at least some of our golden years have gone platinum.
But we not only want our drugs, we want them cheap. We're just never satisfied.
The AARP crowd's constant sniveling and complaining irritates Congress, but it's only during election years that our legislators manage to consider anything but writing pork-filled bills funding billion dollar stealth bombers that are only stealthy every 2nd Tuesday unless it happens to rain.
This year's House effort to placate us whiners who, despite government efforts to keep our health on a short leash, vote in larger numbers every year, is HR 4954, a bill that theoretically [the operative word here] would cover the cost of prescription drugs under Medicare.
The term 'cover' is wide open to interpretation, and the actual terms of the proposal are not only tediously verbose, but challenging to the mathematically impaired ... a category that includes almost everyone except members of Congress, all of whom are so thoroughly health-insured at our expense, they no longer need to be able to add anything except their stock holdings and pension benefits.
Attempting to read the terms of any congressional bill is an exercise that rivals deciphering software manuals written in English literally translated from the original Japanese. I quote here just one of the fascinating provisions that litter the gazillion sections of H.R. 4954:
"(A) IN GENERAL_ Notwithstanding paragraph (3), the coverage provides benefits with no cost-sharing after the individual has incurred costs (as described in subparagraph (C)) for covered outpatient drugs in a year equal to the annual out-of-pocket threshold specified in subparagraph (B)."
Got that?
The title of H.R.4954 – "Medicare Modernization and Prescription Drug Act of 2002 (Engrossed as Agreed to or Passed by House)" makes one wonder about the native languages of the people who write this stuff. After scrolling through several hundred pages of redundancies that succeed primarily in keeping readers from reaching any descriptions of the bill's so-called benefits, I would hardly apply the word 'engrossed' to the process, although 'frustrated', 'confused' and 'Jeez!' come quickly to mind.
Buried in the depths of sections, subsections, subparagraphs and subsections of subparagraphs I finally uncovered one fact that actually relates to the subject at hand:
In the year 2005, there will be a deductible of $250. [Presumably it will take that long for everyone to read the bill and deal with its 7,837 stipulations.]
Further 'benefits' may be tucked into subsequent sections of the tome, but having pretty much lost my way in the winding paths of govermentese, I went back to the web in search of some site that could put any portion of HR 4954 into plain English.
The results did help breach the language barrier, but they also challenged me to get out my calculator to see just how much congressional largesse would help me. Based on information which may be altered even as you read this:
Using this plan, the following would have been my savings in one recent year when my total drug costs, not covered by insurance, were $1,772.00:
Annual deductible: $ 250.00
Annual premiums @ $30 month: 360.00
50% of drug costs less annual premium: 761.00
Total paid out-of-pocket: 1,371.00
Total savings under plan: $ 401.00
This is, of course, better than nothing. But to put it into a new perspective, if with the same expenses I purchased any of my drugs available by mail from Canada, I come up with the following :
Cost of Canadian drugs: $ 296.00
Shipping
charges*:
70.00
*Based on ordering several refills at
once.
Cost of US drugs not obtainable from
Canada 500.00
Total paid out-of-pocket: $ 866.00
Total savings: $ 906.00
AT NO COST TO THE US TAXPAYER OR THE MEDICARE BUDGET!
The observant [obviously this excludes members of Congress] will notice that the difference in savings between HR 4594 and paying Canadian prices is more than double. Taking advantage of this, however, would have been a) illegal [although tolerated]; and b) a blow to US drug manufacturers so determined to have us pay US prices, they're willing to pump billions of our contributions to their profits into Congress to make sure we keep doing it.
It should be noted that Senate Democrats generally favor a measure that would set up a government-run prescription drug benefit, with beneficiaries paying a $25 monthly premium, no deductible and a $10 co-payment on generic drugs or a $40 co-payment on brand name drugs.
Math isn't my strong point, and I haven't seen the text of this proposal, but I'm still trying to figure out how we would calculate costs for brand-name drugs priced at less than $40.
Of course, the question is theoretical, since no one in Congress actually believes there are enough votes to pass either bill, and by the time they've finished arguing about it, the next election will be over and they can go back to spending our money on more important stuff, like financing an invasion of Iraq and paying English professors to train the president to say 'nuclear' instead of 'nucular'.
In the meantime, we seniors can go back to capitalizing on all those benefits everyone tells us we are enjoying. And with all that spare time on our hands, we can try to decide whether we should actually buy one of the prescription drugs we need to stay alive, or use the money to buy a month's supply of groceries for the same purpose.
At today's drug prices, that's how the math works out on that issue. And at the rate Congress works, that's how it's going to be ... until the next election year.
© sonya hammond, 2002