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Politics : PRESIDENT GEORGE W. BUSH -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (523244)	1/13/2004 7:32:02 AM
From: Kenneth E. Phillipps	Read Replies (4) \| Respond to of 769667

O'Neill also asserts that he was rebuked for raising concerns that Bush's tax cuts were dangerously expanding the deficit. 'Our due' When he expressed these concerns to Cheney after the 2002 midterm elections, the vice president reportedly said, "Reagan proved deficits don't matter," and added: "We won the midterms. This is our due." msnbc.msn.com

To: Kenneth E. Phillipps who wrote (523244)	1/13/2004 9:11:36 AM
From: JakeStraw	Respond to of 769667

Health Chief Attacks Democrats on Medicare By ROBERT PEAR Published: January 13, 2004 ASHINGTON, Jan. 12 — Tommy G. Thompson, the secretary of health and human services, said Monday that elderly people were forming negative impressions of the new Medicare law, and he blamed Democratic presidential candidates, who he said were spreading misinformation about the measure, championed by President Bush. "There's a lot of misinformation out there," Mr. Thompson said at a briefing for reporters, complaining that "just about every one of the Democrat candidates running for president has been criticizing the Medicare law." Secretary Thompson, who worked with the Republican-controlled Congress in writing the law, said Medicare beneficiaries were becoming concerned because they heard it criticized by Democrats "night in and night out" on television news programs. "People are somewhat afraid," he said. Mr. Thompson summarized and rejected three Democratic arguments: ¶That Medicare beneficiaries will have to join a health maintenance organization to get prescription drug benefits. ¶That the law is "a big sop to the pharmaceutical companies and to H.M.O.'s and that there's no benefits there for seniors, or very few benefits." ¶That the law "will destroy Medicare as we know it." In response to those arguments, "we have to be much more aggressive in telling our story," Mr. Thompson said. To that end, the Department of Health and Human Services is sending a two-page notice to the 40 million Medicare beneficiaries. The notice says, "President Bush and Congress worked together to pass a new law to bring people with Medicare more choices in health care coverage and better health care benefits." The bulletin defends the law, saying it "preserves and strengthens the current Medicare program." It assures elderly and disabled people, "You will still be able to choose doctors, hospitals and pharmacies." Democrats take issue with each of those contentions. Drug benefits, they note, will be delivered by private plans that can charge people more for using drugstores outside a network of recommended pharmacies. Asked about Mr. Thompson's comments, Democratic candidates repeated their objections. "There's a good reason people have a negative impression of the president's prescription drug bill," said former Gov. Howard Dean of Vermont. "What does he expect from a plan that raises drug company profits more than senior citizens' prescription benefits?" Sarah A. Bianchi, policy director for the campaign of Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts, said she was not surprised that administration officials felt a need to defend the statute. "John Kerry just tells voters what's in the law," Ms. Bianchi said. "Most of them don't like what they hear. They can see there's a windfall for pharmaceutical companies and big insurance companies. How else can you explain the fact that the law explicitly prohibits the Medicare program from negotiating better prices on drugs?" She was referring to a provision that says the government "may not interfere with the negotiations between drug manufacturers and pharmacies" and the private entities that sponsor Medicare drug plans. The law's sponsors adopted that provision for fear that government involvement would overwhelm the free market and in effect set prices. Steven A. Elmendorf, chief of staff for the campaign of Representative Richard A. Gephardt of Missouri, said: "If seniors are forming a negative impression of the law, it's because they're smart. They follow the issue closely, and they've figured out that it's not good for them. Many retirees, like my parents, have good drug benefits from a large corporation, but they're worried that when the government plan takes effect, companies will dump them into the government program, which won't be as good." Secretary Thompson said he saw no need to change the law, at least not now. "The worst thing in the world," he said, "would be to start making wholesale changes now before we get it up and running." nytimes.com