All Fucked Up, And Nowhere To Go

The Prescription Drug Plan is so crapped up that it's starting to take down Social Security. LATimes (02.04.06):

"Social Security has been so overwhelmed helping seniors cope with the new Medicare drug program that other services are starting to suffer, a senior government official said in a candid internal e-mail released Friday. A large backlog of cases is getting worse, and the agency is cutting back on audits that save the government money." Drug-Plan Woes Spread Past Medicare

"'It's not a rosy picture, and the news doesn't get better,' Deputy Commissioner for Operations Linda S. McMahon wrote to operations employees." "The Social Security Administration is scrounging for money to pay overtime, McMahon wrote, and will have to cut back on other priorities, though monthly retirement checks for 48 million Social Security beneficiaries will not be affected." "'Those of you on the front line have been expressing your deep concern that [Social Security] is not positioned well to help people understand, enroll in and negotiate' the Medicare drug program, she wrote. 'Now we are seeing the consequences of that fact. Our national 800-number network has been overwhelmed for weeks'." Congress made sure that "the law that created the Medicare drug benefit [provide] extra funding for Social Security in 2004 and 2005". However, in its infinite wisdom and grace, Congress didn't earmark any extra funds for Social Security in 2006. "Instead, Congress cut the agency's administrative budget from $9.3 billion in 2005 to $9.1 billion in 2006." And if that wasn't enough to steam your dumplings! Knight-Ridder (02.03.06):

"More than a month after filling thousands of unpaid prescriptions for poor, sick customers, many of America's small and independent pharmacists, particularly those in low-income and rural areas, are facing a cash crunch as they await repayment from Medicare's private drug plans. At Rose Drugs in central Tampa, Fla., many customers are poor people with HIV infections and elderly people on fixed incomes. When their drug coverage switched from Medicaid to Medicare on Jan. 1, store owner Rose Ferlita doled out medicines to combat their ailments even though she couldn't always verify their enrollment in the new Medicare drug benefit." Many pharmacists face money shortage awaiting Medicare repayments

"'What are you going to do?' Ferlita asked. 'My friends are my customers and my customers are my friends. You've got to give them something.'" You need a hero? "As weeks passed and the enrollment problems mounted, Ferlita took out a $40,000 loan to help pay the drug wholesalers who wanted their bills paid now, not when the hoped-for Medicare payments came in."