Medicare Prescription Drug Act Of 2003 ... FBIC Reports On The Medicare Prescription Drug Act As It Plays Out ... The Mis-steps Right From The Start Includes A Spendthrift Unnecessary $10B Financial Windfall Payment To Managed Healthcare Insurers And There Is No Prescription Insurance Plan Or Drug Coverage? There Is An Agreement Not To Negotiate Volume Discount Deals Or Lowest Prices With The Drug Companies And Its A Prescription Discount Card? What Kind Of Prescription Discount Plan Or Scam Is This For America's Seniors? ... And Literally No Planning For Implementation Of The Bill Which Was Not Realistic To Begin With And Is Utterly Worthless With Some 40 Plus Discount Card Programs Each With Their Own List Of Drug Formularies, Their Own Set Of Rules, Discounts And So-called Benefits Leaving Everyone, Including Seniors And Pharmacists Without A Clue And In Absolute Confusion. In Addition, Speak To Any Pharmacist (As We Did And As This Is Being Written By Experienced And Well-Seasoned Practicing Pharmacists As We Speak), And Any Knowledgeable Pharmacist Will Tell You That Prescription Drug Discount Card Programs Have Existed And Been Around Since The Beginning Of Managed Healthcare And Exist To This Very Day.

These referenced managed healthcare prescription drug discount cards have been used since their inception going back to the early 1980s and are available at a small fee to anyone and everyone. To be clear, "everyone" includes seniors, people with disabilities, etc. ... and they exclude no one. The reason they are so readily available to everyone is that they do not represent an insurance plan and have no insurance value or insurance exposure whatsoever to the managed healthcare plan issuer ... they are a discount card, and, unlike their johnny-come-lately confusing new senior discount card counterparts which have been reported to all be different and have different formularies and prices, … whereas the pre-existing discount cards provide for discounts on all drugs, generally have no formulary limitations and are better than what the limited formularies on the new cards profess to do for the same comparable prices and costs ... that is if you want a discount card to begin with or think that you will save above the managed healthcare company small costs associated with the discount card.

The Media further reports that besides the clear relationship established between the health care companies campaign contributions and Medicare drug discount cards, as reported by the Boston Globe and the media, "the White House allowed drug card industry CEO David Halbert (a longtime Bush campaign contributor) to be involved in the original crafting of the discount card program. The result is a program that enriches drug card companies at the expense of consumers. The cards do not guarantee any price savings for consumers, allowing drug card companies to change their discounts at any time in order to maximize profits. Now, as the program is set to start, it has been reported the White House has once again looked to its top campaign contributors in deciding which companies it approved to administer the cards. All told, the 73 companies selected gave President Bush and conservatives in Congress more than $5 million since 2000. Of those 73 companies approved by the administration, 20 (almost one third) have been involved in fraud charges. Those 20 companies made more than 60% of the total contributions to Bush and conservatives by drug card companies, calling into question whether the administration overlooked those companies' records because of their financial ties to the Bush campaign.

Our country's seniors didn't ask for a discount card plan or program or more of what already exists and that is and has always been available to them. Those politicians that promised seniors a Medicare prescription drug plan as part of their election campaign promises, (FYI, a prescription "drug plan" generally means or implies "an insurance plan"), you should know that you did not come through on your promise. Had Medicare paid something, anything, even ten cents or 1%, and/or had their been an ounce of resemblance of what seniors have with their existing Medicare program, is the very minimum expected that would have qualified it as an insurance plan or program. But instead you gave them nothing or at very minimum gave them more of something that has no insurance value and costs Medicare and/or managed healthcare "nothing" (that is other than the reported $10b you gave away to managed health insurers and for what), something that already exists and for something that costs much more than its worth ... And then to top it all off, politicians act like they gave seniors something really special. So special, that not only do they have difficulty understanding the practical benefit or seeing its value, much like that of the story of the emperor's clothes, but there is no cohesive plan of implementation. Bottom line and simply put, just as the emperor had no clothes, this Medicare prescription drug plan is not a plan at all, has no worth and no value ... except that it only adds more confusion to seniors lives (which hopefully gets you and your elected colleagues through the election falsely believing you fulfilled a promise that you defaulted on). The politicians who voted for this should be ashamed, and seniors should not be taken in by this so-called program for the non-plan and sham that it is and send a clear message, that you want what was promised or else, you know what in the next election(s)!