Friday, April 21, 2006
San Jose Mercury News - Apr. 13: Millions of senior citizens have not signed up for and do not know much about Medicare's new prescription-drug benefit, but among those who have enrolled, three-quarters said the paperwork was easy to complete and nearly two-thirds said the program had saved them money, the latest Washington Post-ABC News poll shows.The findings underscore the challenge the administration faces in persuading large numbers of seniors to participate in the program, the largest expansion of a government social benefit in decades. Democrats have attacked the program as too complex and costly, and say it was written to benefit pharmaceutical companies.President Bush defended the plan Tuesday in front of senior groups in Missouri and Iowa. "We had people say the prescription-drug plan is just simply a hollow promise, or the bill will leave millions of seniors worse off," he said in Jefferson City, Mo. "That's not the facts. See, when you cut through all the rhetoric and look at the results, I think people are going to be amazed at what's available."The program, called Medicare Part D, subsidizes prescription drugs for the disabled and for people 65 and older. So far, 29 million Americans have enrolled, leaving at least 8 million to 14 million still eligible.Forty-one percent of those polled approve of the program, while 45 percent disapprove. Seven in 10 seniors think the May 15 sign-up deadline should be extended.A total of 1,229 randomly selected adults, including 386 respondents 65 or older, were interviewed by telephone Thursday to Sunday for this survey. The margin of error is plus or minus three percentage points for the overall results, and plus or minus five percentage points for the results based on the responses of all seniors.
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@ 11:30 AM
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