Should Medicare be expanded to cover prescription drugs?

[Guest Ray Berry]

President Clinton is proposing prescription drug coverage for Medicare. Should Medicare coverage be expanded in this area? I believe the "average person" already assumed there was such coberage. (Similar comments apply to lont-term care.)

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Ray Berry

[Larry M]

Your question raises a number of issues.

They range from "should the govt continue to maintain Medicare at all?" to "should the govt provide all medical care to all people?"

With respect to prescription coverage only, I have many concerns:

a.Medicare costs are greater than any of us had anticipated they would become when it was first introduced.

b. It appears as if the costs of the current Medicare benefits will continue to far exceed the current income for a significant number of years.

c. The proposed additional prescription benefit (with a maximum of $1,000/year benefit) will reach the $1,000 per year cost per person who chooses it (we who are on Medicare are quite capable of discerning whether an optional benefit will return more in benefits than that which we paid for it)

d.It will most likely cotnribute to a rise in drug prices for all (even greater than the trends we are experiencing now), just as Medicare created huge increases in hospital and physican fees for all people.

e. [if I were a cynic, I would add:] The addition of such a benefit to the Medicare program will produce an increase in the number of people who will vote for the sponsors of the bill.

f. The basis for the proposed increase in benefits is the assumed increase in the surplus position - however almost all of the surplus is created by the excess of current social security income when compared to social security outgo.

This surplus is needed to pay for the future years of social security when its outgo exceeds it income. To use it for other purposes is to defer the problems with that plan.