Area residents wonder how to afford their medications

[Ilsa]

Our small town newspaper is covering the medicare part d fiasco. Mentions that pharmacies can't reach insurance companies etc because the lines are too busy.

http://www.thevictoriaadvocate.com/front/story/3278597p-3795219c.html

Medicare plan 'a mess'
Area residents wonder how to afford their medications

January 23, 2006

Don Smith and Edward Bahn are both up in age and both have health problems. And they agree with a Citizens Medical Center pharmacist's assertion that the new Medicare Part D prescription drug plan is "not working quite right yet."

snip

Smith said that the insurance company, in this case Aetna Medicare, told him that the only way it would give him extra help is if he signed up for the most expensive of Aetna's three insurance plans, which carries a monthly premium twice as much as the plan with which he wanted to sign.

snip

Fissel told Smith that the best course of action for him would be to call the Social Security Administration to make sure his paperwork is correct, then to call the various insurance companies until he finds one that will give him "extra help" with fewer strings attached.

Smith did not gain much insight from the information session, saying that the Internet directions were meaningless to him, as he does not know how to use a computer, "not even a cash register," he said.

All in all, he came away feeling a little more angry than optimistic about his prescriptive future. "I'm going to die," he said.

snip

[Horse with no Name]

1. A society is measured by how they treat their weakest citizens

Let's see...
We take away free school lunches, assault our homeless citizens and then take away our senior citizens medicine.

My guess is we don't measure up.

Say what you want about Cuba, but they look out for their weakest.
They have healthcare, homes and education.

[Ilsa]

2. I saw on CNN this morning that some schools in CA have travelling

school nurses who have to cover 4-5 campuses. They think it is possible that the asthmatic death of one student is related to the absence of a nurse on property.

And yesterday, Bush* was trying to tell a college student that the govt hadn't cut funding for college grants, etc. What a fracking liar.

[Horse with no Name]

3. We have one school nurse

for the entire district. I think this is absurd.

[pitohui]

4. are you serious?

i thought in california (and many other states) children are no longer allowed to carry their own medicines and can only have them dispensed by the school nurse

so if you have an asthma attack while nurse is elsewhere you just gotta die because if you carry yr own inhaler you're going to be expelled under zero tolerance?

can't be right, i must be understanding this wrong, i hope

[Tesha]

5. Ask everyone of them if they vote Republican. (NT)