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TUESDAY,  MAY 16, 2006
Reichert & Co. silently support unfair Medicare penalties

As the open enrollment period for seniors and the disabled to sign up for the Medicare Part D prescription drug benefit ended, angry seniors and concerned citizens on Monday delivered dozens of empty pill bottles -- representing the thousands of prescriptions that will go unfilled for Washington’s seniors -- to the Mercer Island office of U.S. Rep. Dave Reichert (R-WA) because he has failed to support efforts to extend the punitive, arbitrary May 15 deadline.

All of the Democratic members of Washington's congressional delegation are on record as supporting legislation to waive the penalties for Monday's deadline. Seniors and people with disabilities who failed to enroll by May 15 will have to pay a minimum of 7 percent higher monthly premiums for the rest of their lives.

But despite growing bipartisan support for waiving the penalties -- as reported in today's L.A. Times -- Rep. Dave Reichert and other Republicans from Washington state silently support the Bush administration's punitive deadline.  On Monday, Reichert merely extended his office hours to "assist seniors with the sign-up process."

Today, the New York Times editorializes in favor of waiving the penalty:

Now that the chaotic sign-up period for the new Medicare drug program is over, it surely makes sense to extend the deadline to allow more people to join and to avoid the penalty for lateness. That would be fair to the large number of elderly Americans who have been mystified by the program's complicated design or misled by confusing instructions during the initial registration period. It would also probably help strengthen the financial underpinnings of the program by giving healthy people, whose premiums help subsidize the sick, another chance to sign up without penalty.

Washington State Labor Council President Rick Bender's monthly column, which appeared in Monday's edition of The Columbian, called for the Part D program's fundamental flaws to be fixed before imposing threats and penalties:

(Helping my mother enroll in the program) was a frustrating experience, and not just because it was difficult, complicated and ended up taking months instead of weeks.  It was frustrating because we were doing it at the point of the federal government's gun -- an arbitrary, punitive enrollment deadline.  And it was infuriating because Congress and the Bush administration didn't bother to fix the Medicare drug program before they imposed that threat.

Washington Citizen Action, which organized Monday's protest at Rep. Reichert's Mercer Island office, had this to say in its press release:

Part D is a special interest law that puts drug and insurance companies ahead of seniors. It prohibits Medicare from negotiating for the lowest possible drug prices for seniors and denies seniors the choice of a simple prescription drug benefit directly from Medicare. 

Washington Citizen Action calls on Rep. Reichert to support retroactively extending the deadline and reopening the enrollment period so seniors and the disabled can continue to sign up for a drug plan while Washington Citizen Action and its allies work to convince Congress to take up legislation to fix Part D.