Chicago—President George W. Bush's plan to offer immediate assistance to help low-income Medicare recipients receive prescription drug coverage is likely to be scuttled in favor of a more comprehensive plan that could take a year to hammer out.
Bush's "Immediate Helping Hand" program, announced during his second week in office, would offer federal subsidies to state programs to help low-income recipients pay for prescription drugs. The president has proposed sweeping Medicare reforms that would cover prescription drugs, but enactment could take years.
Instead of a quick remedy for low-income elderly persons, a more likely scenario is the emergence of a plan by March 2002 that will offer prescription drug coverage for all Medicare recipients, said Ed Howard, JD, executive vice president of the Alliance for Health Reform in Washington, DC.
"I think it will be universal and voluntary, and it may or may not be accompanied by . . . [Full Text of this Article]
