Bush, Touting Drug Plan, Encounters Protests Over Social Security
By ROBERT PEAR
MAPLE GROVE, Minn., June 17 - President Bush came here on Friday to promote the Medicare drug benefit, enacted 18 months ago with help from AARP. But he was greeted by people protesting his plan to overhaul Social Security.
"Hands off our Social Security," said a sign outside the local community center, where Mr. Bush encouraged older Americans to sign up for the drug benefit.
The fight over Social Security could complicate efforts to sell the drug benefit, if only by sending a mixed message about actual and potential changes in the two programs.
Medicare insures more than 41 million Americans who are 65 or older or have physical or mental disabilities. All are eligible for the drug benefit. People will receive detailed information about their options in October and can enroll in the six-month period that begins Nov. 15. Medicare will begin paying for outpatient drugs on Jan. 1.
"It's a good deal," Mr. Bush told a friendly audience of several hundred people inside the community center in this suburb of Minneapolis. "This isn't political talk. This is true, and I encourage people to take a look at this program."
"On the average," Mr. Bush said, "the folks who sign up for this prescription drug benefit are going to save $1,300 a year. For the first time in Medicare's history, there will be a stop-loss, a kind of catastrophic care."
Premiums are expected to average $37 a month. Under the standard benefit defined by Congress, the beneficiary will be responsible for a $250 annual deductible, 25 percent of drug costs from $251 to $2,250 and all of the next $2,850 in drug costs. Beyond that level - $5,100 a year and more - Medicare will pay about 95 percent of drug costs.
The government will rely on private insurers to deliver the drug benefit, giving people a choice of two or more plans. If that approach works in Medicare, administration officials said, it may bolster the case for giving the private sector a role in Social Security, allowing people to invest some of their payroll taxes in stocks, bonds and mutual funds.
But the fight over Social Security, Mr. Bush's top domestic priority, could also distract people from the changes coming in Medicare.
Hubert H. Humphrey III, president of the Minnesota branch of AARP, said: "I welcome the president to our state. I am very pleased he's talking about the Medicare drug benefit, and we will help him in that effort to educate millions of Medicare beneficiaries."
But Mr. Humphrey added: "We strenuously disagree with the president's plan to create private accounts financed out of Social Security. His plan puts an undue burden on future generations by saddling them with the huge costs of altering Social Security, as well as a decrease in future benefits. It's a lose-lose situation for everyone involved."
Mr. Bush did not mention Social Security in his public remarks on Friday. Scott McClellan, the White House press secretary, reaffirmed the president's support for personal accounts, even though his proposal is stalled in Congress. Mr. McClellan said Mr. Bush would reiterate his position in a public "conversation on Social Security" next week.
"We are working very closely with Congress to save Social Security for future generations," Mr. McClellan said Friday, and "personal accounts are an important part of the solution," because, he said, they offer a higher rate of return than Social Security now gets by investing in government securities.
Janice L. Stover, president of the Idaho branch of AARP, said that older Americans linked Medicare and Social Security because premiums for the health insurance program were deducted from monthly Social Security checks.
"People will think about the future of Social Security as they decide whether to sign up for the Medicare drug benefit," Mrs. Stover said.
Bush administration officials said they hoped that members of Congress, including those who voted against the Medicare bill, would publicize the drug benefit and help people take advantage of it.
But Representative Betty McCollum, Democrat of Minnesota, said she would advise constituents that "you need to be very careful."
"We don't know exactly what the drug benefit will look like, and we don't know how much it will cost," Ms. McCollum said.
Medicare will subsidize drug coverage offered by private insurers if it is at least as generous as the standard Medicare benefit. But the details will vary. Plans can charge different premiums and co-payments and will cover different drugs.
Ms. McCollum said that a confusing array of private plans would increase the apprehensions of "seniors and retirees who are already feeling very insecure" because of doubts about the solvency of Social Security and private pensions.
But Dr. Mark B. McClellan, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, the agency that runs the two health programs, said: "In the whole discussion about Social Security, no one is talking about any changes in benefits for people who are on the program now or close to it. The new Medicare benefits are coming right away, to help people get up-to-date health care coverage. That's very different."
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