Source: SignOnSanDiego.Com
It was only a matter of time before seniors would get the shaft from a president and Congress that just don't give a damn about the people. An obvious showing of this sentiment is a Medicare plan that seniors must sign up for by May 15, but know nothing about.
Seniors, you are now on the clock.
But with the clock ticking toward a May 15 deadline for joining a plan without penalty of premium increases, Dayton and as many as 100,000 other seniors like her in San Diego County are feeling pressure to sign up.
"I just have to make a decision," Dayton said after attending a workshop on Medicare's new discount prescription drug program, known as Part D.
Armed with surveys indicating that most seniors enrolled in a plan are satisfied with it, federal health care officials have launched an all-out effort to sign up more of the 42.5 million people who are eligible.
Anyone who doesn't sign up by the deadline will face a 1 percent increase in premiums for each month their decision is delayed. The next opportunity to enroll is Nov. 15, and the penalty lasts for life.
The list of glaring glitches and problems with government's new prescription drug program for seniors:
Early glitches with Part D only elevated confusion over the program. Some participants who asked for premiums to be taken out of their Social Security checks are being mailed monthly bills instead.
Others have tried to buy drugs from their pharmacist, only to learn that the medicines aren't covered by their plans. And others haven't been able to buy medications because their names don't appear in drug plan computer systems.
Customer service representatives answering a Part D telephone hotline gave inaccurate, inappropriate or incomplete responses to one in three callers, according to a report last week from the Government Accountability Office.
Both seniors and younger adults had difficulty using some elements of the agency's drug program Internet site. And some documents from Medicare explaining the drug program were unclear because they were written above the reading level of 40 percent of seniors.
Thanks a lot for screwing the aging senior population and giving a "golden egg" to big money drug companies in the form of very dangerous, failed legislation.
These guys in Congress would sell out their own mothers if there were some sort of profit to be made from it.
Tags: [Seniors facing Medicare deadline], [Seniors], [May 15 deadline], [Medicare's new discount prescription drug program], [Medicare], [Part D], [federal government's new prescription drug program], [Congress], [aging senior population], [drug companies], [drug industry], [premiums], [medications]
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