No Amnesty for Old People

Yesterday was the deadline for senior citizens to register for the prescription drug plan, called Medicare Part D. Now some people are saying that the deadline should be extended for the millions who missed the cut-off and will be without coverage for the rest of the year. The President has refused to extend the deadline and as everyone knows, once he has made a decision, he doesn't change his mind no matter what, which is what we like about him. I think extending the prescription drug benefit deadline would amount to amnesty for old people and everyone knows amnesty is wrong. It would be unfair to the elderly who registered before the deadline and would just reward aging slackers and law-breakers.

Medicare Part D lets seniors choose among a number of different plans provided by private companies, who were especially chosen for this task because of their long friendship with Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist and other members of the Republican Party. It makes Medicare less like socialized medicine and more like private insurance, which everyone loves. But some complain that the plans are "complicated" and it is difficult to sort through them all, though apparently it wasn't too complicated for Congress, which needed only three hours to debate the bill. Old people should be grateful that they are being allowed to buy drugs through private companies and not being forced to take a government plan, since as everyone knows after Hurricane Katrina, the government is incapable of running anything. In fact, they should just be happy they have health care at all, which is more than some Americans have.

Sure, there have been a few glitches as there are with every new program. There are reports of people being forced to wait on hold for long periods of time to inquire about prescriptions and of pharmacies unable to process some patients' eligibility. So a few people are inconvenienced by having to wait a while for beta blockers, insulin, cancer drugs, and other medications. It's not as if old people have a lot of other pressing appointments.

It just seems that old people like to complain a lot. Some who missed the deadline said the plan is "confusing." Some just forgot (which old people seem to do a lot for some reason). Others complained that they didn't know about the deadline although it was advertised in newspapers with very big print and on TV news programs with closed captioning, which they would be able to see if they could figure out how to use the remote. Still others just seem incapable of making a decision and sticking to it. All of this sounds very familiar. Remember all the retired people in Florida who voted for Pat Buchanan in the 2000 election and then changed their minds? They trotted out the same excuses then, claiming the butterfly ballots were "confusing" and "difficult to understand." Apparently, they expect that we as a society should lower our standards to accommodate them.

President Bush was swept into office promising to be a "compassionate conservative." But I think some people have gotten the wrong idea. Compassionate conservatism isn't about catering to whiners' every whim. It's about deeply sympathizing with peoples' problems and sincerely hoping that private enterprise will be able to do something about them. I don't think you can ask anything more from government than that.

Jon Swift, Medicare Part D, Health Insurance, Health, Health Care, Medicine, Bush, Bill Frist, Prescription Drugs, Compassionate Conservative, Florida, Politics, Economics, Gribbit's Word Mid-Week Open Posts, Stuck on Stupid Mid-Week Trackback Party, Diane's Stuff Wednesday Weekly Open Trackback Alliance Fest