Dan Burton: “last night I took a special order, and I talked about what seniors are going to pay under the new Medicare prescription…”

“last night I took a special order, and I talked about what seniors are going to pay under the new Medicare prescription drug program if it is passed in its present form; and I understand it is coming out of committee just a little bit different than that we said last night, but the end result is the same. They are changing the annual deductible from $275 to $250, but the seniors will be paying 25 percent of the next $2,250 minus the annual deductible. So the seniors for $1,500 in coverage will be paying $1,170, and that is not well known by most of the seniors with whom I have talked. And then there is a doughnut hole which goes up to $5,100, and seniors will pay an additional $2,850 with no coverage for that. That means seniors up to $5,100 under the new prescription drug benefit will pay $4,020 and the government will pay $1,500. Now, that is not what I think seniors are expecting. I think they are expecting coverage that is much broader than that; and I think they are going to be very unpleasantly surprised when they realize that they will be paying a tremendous amount of money for very small amount of coverage. Now, above the $5,000 level, the catastrophic health care benefit kicks in, and that is 95 percent of that. But the average senior pays about $1,800 year in prescription drug costs, and they will not reach that level. There will be very few that reach that level.”