Bush offensive to enroll drug plan doubters

US President George W Bush is on a tour of the USA's retirement homes and seniors' social clubs to drive home the message that older people have until May 15 to register with a Medicare prescription drug plan or face financial penalties. The campaign is part of a program of over 1,000 meetings organized by the federal government to promote the May 15 deadline. The President, accompanied by Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS) Admi-nistrator Mark McClellan, held a seminar at the Richard J Ernst Community Center at Annandale, in the state of Virginia, at which they admitted that there have been pro-blems with enrollment to prescription drug plans, but emphasized the progress that has been made.

President Bush described the rationale for the Medicare Plan D as modernizing Medicare to take into account the fact the prescription drug costs are a major proportion of health care costs for senior citizens, but that the existing system did not provide for this. Defending the complexity of choices on offer, the President said: "as a matter of fact, in the state of Virginia, there's over 40 plans for you to look at - 40 different options for a senior to choose from. I thought that it was very important to have [these] avai-lable for seniors. Government tends to say: I'll choose for you. I believe government ought to say, we trust you with your choice, and here are some options for you to choose."

President Bush acknowledged that some people were overwhelmed by the variety of programs on offer. How-ever, he pointed out that competition between plan pro-viders had already led to a greater-than-expected fall in drug plan costs: original estimates suggested that Medi-care Rx plans would cost $34 per month in premiums, but in March that figure was down to $25 per month.