医疗保险首席官为布什的处方折扣计划辩护(下)
Along with the prescription discount plan, the president yesterday also unveiled his principles for Congress's upcoming attempt at reforming the Medicare program. Bush repeated his criteria today in a speech to doctors at Johns Hopkins Hospital in Baltimore, Maryland. Those principles include a demand that seniors have the option to stay in a pre-reform style Medicare plan if they choose.
"If you're happy with the Medicare system, getting up in your years, you're not interested in change...you should be allowed to stay in the system as it is," Bush said today.
Bush also said that seniors should be given a variety of choices for Medicare coverage, should have protection against high out-of-pocket costs for healthcare, should have access to a prescription drug benefit.
Medication coverage is the most popular of all the proposed reforms, but Bush has demanded that lawmakers resist the urge to pass a prescription drug benefit without reforming the overall plan.
Asked by former Medicare administrator Gail Wilensky the president would ever consider signing a prescription drug benefit without broader reforms, Scully said: "I think that the answer is clearly no."
"It's a very, very, very strongly held view of the administration that there is not going to be a prescription drug benefit without reform" to Medicare as a whole, he said.
Still, Moon warned that the $300 billion Congress has set aside to pay for a prescription drug benefit over the next decade would not be enough to provide meaningful coverage to seniors. She pointed out that $300 billion represents only 23% seniors' projected spending on prescription drugs over the next 10 years.
The Congressional Budget Office recently priced the Senate's leading Democratic prescription drug plan at $318 billion over 10 years. A competing plan, sponsored by Sens. John Breaux (D-La.) and Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was estimated to cost $176 billion.
"It's not going to be a useful benefit unless it's an expensive benefit," Moon said. By holding the plan to $300 billion, "one way or another you're going to get a 23% benefit."
The Senate is expected to hold hearings on prescription drugs and Medicare reform in the next few weeks, 百拇医药
"If you're happy with the Medicare system, getting up in your years, you're not interested in change...you should be allowed to stay in the system as it is," Bush said today.
Bush also said that seniors should be given a variety of choices for Medicare coverage, should have protection against high out-of-pocket costs for healthcare, should have access to a prescription drug benefit.
Medication coverage is the most popular of all the proposed reforms, but Bush has demanded that lawmakers resist the urge to pass a prescription drug benefit without reforming the overall plan.
Asked by former Medicare administrator Gail Wilensky the president would ever consider signing a prescription drug benefit without broader reforms, Scully said: "I think that the answer is clearly no."
"It's a very, very, very strongly held view of the administration that there is not going to be a prescription drug benefit without reform" to Medicare as a whole, he said.
Still, Moon warned that the $300 billion Congress has set aside to pay for a prescription drug benefit over the next decade would not be enough to provide meaningful coverage to seniors. She pointed out that $300 billion represents only 23% seniors' projected spending on prescription drugs over the next 10 years.
The Congressional Budget Office recently priced the Senate's leading Democratic prescription drug plan at $318 billion over 10 years. A competing plan, sponsored by Sens. John Breaux (D-La.) and Bill Frist (R-Tenn.) was estimated to cost $176 billion.
"It's not going to be a useful benefit unless it's an expensive benefit," Moon said. By holding the plan to $300 billion, "one way or another you're going to get a 23% benefit."
The Senate is expected to hold hearings on prescription drugs and Medicare reform in the next few weeks, 百拇医药