The Direction of Care

Political Affairs.net - November 14, 2006 - by ANNA BATES - Why the Bush/Republican Medicare Drug Plan in Just Plain Wrong

A crisis has arisen in health care for senior and disabled Americans. The Bush Administration and Republican Congressional leaders pushed through a bill that they promised would bring relief from the rising costs of prescription drugs. The Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act (Public Law 109-173), also known as "MMA legislation," is in fact a Trojan horse. In reality, Bush and his associates are trying to induce Medicare recipients to leave their traditional Medicare program and enroll in private managed care plans. The method for doing this is to offer disproportionate federal subsidies to private managed care plans so they can offer more attractive benefits, such as prescription drugs, than traditional Medicare. This will, in the end, be ruinous for those the plan promised to help, and hugely profitable for the private health care sector. This blatant sell-out of Medicare for profit is not only ruinously expensive, it threatens the very fabric of Medicare – one of the best, most socially responsible pieces of legislation ever passed in the United States.

... The most significant immediate problems with Plan D are administrative problems getting people enrolled and covered, and a provision that includes a gaping "doughnut hole," where recipients pay full price for their prescription drugs for a prolonged period of time. This is how it works:

MMA beneficiaries pay a $250 deductible, then 25% of the cost of covered Plan D prescriptions up to $2,250. After that, the beneficiary pays full price for their prescriptions until their out-of-pocket payments equal $3,600. Then the beneficiary pays $2.00 for a generic or preferred drug and $5.00 for other drugs, or a 5% co-pay, whichever is greater.

Many people have gone to the drug store to pick up what they thought would be a covered prescription, only to find that they have fallen into the doughnut hole, and must pay full price for their medication. This is a serious hardship for many. True, there is a provision that theoretically protects the poorest American from the doughnut hole, but it is a serious problem for many, especially moderate-income seniors.

To add insult to injury, this deductible is re-calculated on a yearly basis. A beneficiary who spends $3,600 by December 31 of one year will start their deductible again on January 1 of the next year.... full story

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Morning walk conversation, May 8, 1973

What the Doctor Prescribes

Kirtan: Ancient Medicine for Modern Man by Hansadutta das

Kirtan is the most fundamental practice for reviving one's spiritual life. It is recommended in the Vedic scriptures, the world's oldest spiritual books, that one should chant this sixteen-word mantra: Hare Krishna, Hare Krishna, Krishna Krishna, Hare Hare/ Hare Rama, Hare Rama, Rama Rama, Hare Hare. This is called the maha-mantra. more

The law is cheating, medical science is cheating, and the government is cheating. Top government officials are charged with taking bribes. If the governor takes bribes and the constable takes bribes, then where is the good society? People elect the leader who promises them happiness. But since that happiness is maya [or illusion], he can never deliver it, and society simply becomes filled with cheaters. Since people are actually after this illusory happiness, however, they continue to elect such unscrupulous leaders time and time again.

The position of a Vaishnava [devotee of the Supreme Lord Vishnu, or Krishna] is to take compassion on all these ignorant people. The great Vaishnava Prahlada Maharaja once prayed to the Lord, "My Lord, as far as I am concerned, I have no problems. My consciousness is always absorbed in Your very powerful transcendental activities, and therefore I have understood things clearly. But I am deeply concerned for these rascals who are engaged in activities for illusory happiness." A Vaishnava thinks only about how people can become happy. He knows that they are vainly searching after something that will never come to be. For fifty or sixty years people search after illusory happiness, but then they must die without completing the work and without knowing what will happen after death. Actually, their position is like that of an animal, because an animal also does not know what happens to him after death. The animal does not know the value of life, nor why he has come here. By the influence of maya, he simply eats, sleeps, mates, defends and dies. That's all. Throughout their lives the ignorant animals—and the animalistic men—greatly endeavor to do these five things only: eat, sleep, mate, defend and die. Therefore the business of a Vaishnava is to instruct people that God exists, that we are His servants, and that we can enjoy an eternally blissful life serving Him and developing our love for Him.