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PLENTY
OF TURKEYS
FOR THANKSGIVING THIS YEAR
Journal
of Healing – Nov. 23, 2005
By
Mary Koch
You can do the over-the-woods and through-the-river thing if you
want, but I’m warning you, once you get to Grandmother’s house,
don’t be expecting your usual Thanksgiving feast.
Grandma has no time to cook. She’s much too busy
trying to figure out Medicare D, the new drug benefit plan that goes into
effect Jan. 1. That’s D for dumbfounded.
A
survey conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard School of
Public Health found that more than six in 10 seniors do not understand the
drug benefit very well if at all.
An Internet site, Age Beat On-line, lists some of the
headlines that greeted the plan: “Confusion is Rife” (New York Times),
“Confused by Coverage Choices” (San Francisco Chronicle), “Puzzling
out Medicare Part D,” (Aging Today), “Dazed and Confused” (Consumers
Union Medicare website).
* *
*
THE NEW YORK Times interviewed seniors after they had
attended workshops explaining the benefits. Here are some of the comments:
William Q. Beard, 73, retired chemist: “I have a Ph.D. and it’s
too complicated to suit me . . . I fervently wish that members of Congress
had to deal with the same health care program we do.”
Pauline H. Olney, 74, retired nurse: “The whole thing is
hopelessly complicated.”
Paulette Dibbern, retired insurance agent: “Federal officials
seem to go on the philosophy, ‘Why keep it simple when you can gum up
the works?’”
Edith L. Kohn, 81, retired grocery store cashier: “I don’t
understand why they have to make things so darn complicated.”
Raymond L. Middlesworth, 70, retired truck driver: “I’ve tried
reading the Medicare book about the drug plan, but I couldn’t make sense
of it. This is the biggest mess that Medicare has ever put us through.”
Becki Andrist, 33, my above-average-bright daughter-in-law: “I
worked on it a little bit with my dad. I was confused, and he uses only a
few prescription drugs.”
Mary Koch, 61, newspaper columnist: “I don’t qualify for
Medicare yet, but I’m going to look into my husband’s benefits any day
now. After all, I have until the end of the year, right?”
OK. So the last two weren’t interviewed by the New York Times.
* *
*
FOR YEARS senior citizens demanded a drug benefit. The
government finally provides and what happens? Our “greatest
generation” is beginning to sound as whiney as baby boomers.
No wonder Michael O. Leavitt, secretary of Health and Human
Services, responded: “Health care is complicated. We acknowledge that.
Lots of things in life are complicated: filling out a tax return,
registering your car, getting cable television. It is going to take time
for seniors to become comfortable with the drug benefit.”
Now there’s a man with empathy. He understands that what every
senior citizen wants is yet one more complication in life.
Please note, the government is here to help. There’s the web
site, www.medicare.gov. Trouble is,
the Kaiser/Harvard survey found that 75 percent of seniors have never been
on the Internet.
Which brings us back to Thanksgiving. Here’s my advice:
You young’uns, take your laptops along to Grandmother’s house.
Let Grandma tackle the turkey while you work on the other turkey – uh,
no; I won’t go that far – while you figure out her Medicare D options
on the world wide web.
For those who don’t have Internet access, and even if you do, the
Washington
State Insurance Commissioner’s office offers a volunteer program to
help people sort out insurance issues: SHIBA – Statewide Health
Insurance Benefits Advisors. Call toll-free 1-800-562-6900.
© Mary Koch, Omak, Washington 2005
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