This article states that Health and Human Services Secretary Michael Leavitt seemed

“unaware”

of the problems that residents of nursing homes were faced with when attempting to obtain rx’s.

An example–an 80-year-old woman (who is a resident of a nursing home) had a serious infection.  She had to skip two days worth of a powerful antibiotic because her new plan inexplicably rejected her initial request for the drug.  Forty-eight hours later, the plan approved it.

According to Senator Charles Schumer,

“He (Leavitt) seemed incredulous when I told him, but said he wasn’t really aware of the problems…I was surprised by that.”

continued
Now compare Leavitt’s reaction with this:

Robert Hayes, president of the Medicare Rights Center, states that he had a discussion with Mark McClellan, (Administrator of the federal Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services) EARLY LAST YEAR:

“I was sitting in McClellan’s office and I said, ‘Look, even if you get this transition 99 percent right for the people losing Medicaid coverage, you’re still going to have 64,000 people without drug coverage come Jan. 1.’ And [McClellan] said ‘No, we have everything under control.’ “

From Gary Norton, who runs the Fulton Commons Care Center in East Meadow.:  

“This is a mish-mash and nightmare.”

Does it appear to anyone else that there are two (possibly more?) of bushco’s administration who possibly did not realize the problems thatMedicare D would cause?

It is clear that Medicare D needs serious reform, other than a reimbursement to the states that have had to pick up the tab for rx’s that Medicare D was supposed to pay.

re:  a reimbursment to Massachusetts, Senator Kennedy is quoted

“This is only a Band-Aid on a Medicare prescription drug program that needs major surgery.”