US Medicare Rx plans "could harm seniors"

Plans to provide US seniors with prescription drug coverage underMedicare could be harmful to their health, even leading them to be "medicated to death," according to a new alert for patients issued by the Association of American Physicians and Surgeons, which represents doctors in private practice.

"If seniors and doctors give in to the siren song of unlimited government-mandated free drugs, the safety of all seniors could be seriously compromised," write the alert's authors, Michael Glueck and Robert Cihak.

With seniors averaging more than a dozen prescriptions every year, innumerable complications and interactions are possible, according to the alert. A patient who is taking 10 medications will have the potential for millions of drug interactions, and no physician can completely understand all the interactions possible when multiple drug treatments are used. If Medicare were to be extended to cover all prescriptions, then so could the complications, it warns.