Sherrod Brown: “Today is the first day America's seniors and disabled Americans can use the new prescription drug discount cards created…”

“Today is the first day America's seniors and disabled Americans can use the new prescription drug discount cards created by last year's Republican Medicare law. The discount card program has not exactly been a smashing success. Nationwide, less than half a million seniors actually chose to enroll in the drug discount card program out of 40 million. Little surprise, really, since seniors in my State of Ohio and throughout the country have found it confusing, have found it overwhelmingly bureaucratic, and have found it unreliable. With good reason. Under traditional Medicare, all benefits are accessible through just one card, but under this Rube-Goldberg, new Republican program, seniors have to choose literally from a whole deck of cards. In my State, there are as many as 53 different cards available. One might cover blood pressure medicines but not heart medicine. Another might cover arthritis medicine but not diabetes medicine. Worse yet, the card costs $30, and it must be kept for a whole year, but the discounts published in the brochure given out might be out of date even before an individual gets to the drugstore. The Republican bill lets the drug companies change coverage and discounts as often as once a week without notifying the cardholder, who, as I say, has to keep the card for 12 months. That is not Medicare.”