Tick, Tock. Tick, Tock.

Here it comes! Soon, we'll find out what happens when three and a half million oldsters fall into Medicare's donut hole. The Republicans will find out too. LATimes (07.02.06):

"When Congress created the Medicare prescription drug program, it adopted an unusual idea to hold down costs: the so-called doughnut hole. The program pays most of a participant's drug bills until expenses reach $2,250 in a year. Then it stops paying until costs exceed $5,100." Minding Medicare's Drug Gap

Here's how it works. You pay the first $250.00. Then Medicare pays 75% of the next $2,000.00. Then you pay the next $2,850.00. "'For the first five, six, seven months of the year, everything is hunky-dory,' said Ronald Ozminkowski, a senior researcher with the information firm Thomson Medstat. 'Then come July and August, they're on their own and they will have to start paying everything out of their own pockets.'" And most will continue shelling out for the rest of 2006. And they're gonna get pissed. And all the relatives will get pissed too. And guess who they're gonna get pissed at?