Thursday, January 17, 2002
Page 9
AFFAIRS OF STATE (Column)
Don’t Overmedicate the Prescription Drug Problem
By DAVID KLINE
Many low-income seniors are faced with the choice of eating or paying for life-saving medications. This we have been told, over and over again, by advocacy groups that are lobbying for ways to make prescription drugs less expensive.
The proposed remedies are many and varied. A number of advocates say we should have Medicare cover prescription drug costs, and others want to use a different Social Security cost-of-living adjustment so beneficiaries would receive much larger checks to pay for medications.
Still others take a more socialist approach and advocate government-mandated price caps on drugs, restrictions on patents for certain medicines and bans on advertising by drug companies.
All of these proposals are complicated routes to the same destinatio: a place where low-income seniors don’t have to go without the medicines they need.
Why not remove the complicating factors and go back to providing a service we used to call “welfare.” Let’s skip the fancy schemes and update our welfare programs to specifically help impoverished seniors.
Rather than incurring huge costs to cover rich, middle-class and poor seniors alike under Medicare and Social Security—programs which already are going bankrupt—taxpayers could pay a much smaller amount to cover only those seniors who truly need a safety net.
This could be done by creating a new welfare benefit for people over the age of 65 who can prove they don’t have enough income to pay for the drugs they need. The new benefit could be distributed under the Medicaid program, which exists to help pay medical costs of the poor, or it could be administered by local welfare offices.
The new benefit would have to come with tough, specific rules about who would qualify. Currently, some government benefits created for the poor are being used by middle-class people who hide or give away assets in order to qualify. For the new welfare payments for prescription drugs, taxpayers would need assurance that the money would go to those who need it because of circumstance, not choice. As the saying goes, the goal is to provide a safety net, not a hammock.
Of course, this method of addressing the problem would not be politically correct, because the word “welfare” carries a certain stigma. But is that really such a bad thing? Shouldn’t there be a little stigma attached to government handouts to ensure they’re used as a last resort, and to encourage people to first try to solve their problems on their own, or with the help of friends and family?
Most people are glad to support programs which truly assist those in need, even if that means they have to live simpler lifestyles to afford the taxes. We should strive to fashion such a program, while rejecting proposals which use images of poor, starving seniors simply to put government on a maximum dosage of taxing and spending.
— Capitol News Service
Copyright 2002, Metropolitan News Company