President's "Helping Hand" Isn't

Families USA analysis shows administration's prescription drug proposal won't reach many of the people it is intended to help

WASHINGTON, D.C. - President Bush's "Immediate Helping Hand" proposal to provide prescription drug coverage for America's seniors offers little in the way of real help to seniors struggling with soaring prescription drug costs, according to an analysis by Families USA, the national organization for health care consumers.

"While we are heartened that President Bush is willing to extend prescription drug coverage for all seniors, the structure of his interim proposal will make it harder, not easier, to reach that goal," said Ron Pollack, Families USA's executive director. "The 'Immediate Helping Hand' proposal creates a time-limited structure that would be torn down after four years.

"Additionally, based on past experience, it is unlikely this interim proposal will reach even the limited target population of low-income seniors."

Pollack said Families USA's analysis of the "Immediate Helping Hand" proposal shows several fundamental flaws that either work against the goal of prescription drug coverage for all Medicare beneficiaries or cause the plan to fail to reach even the low-income people who are supposed to receive its benefits:

•  "Immediate Helping Hand" creates a block grant - $48 billion over four years - so the states can establish or augment their own pharmaceutical assistance programs. But at the end of that four years, those programs would be torn down. "Immediate Helping Hand" does not create a foundation for building toward the goal of universal coverage.
•  "Immediate Helping Hand's" block grant will enable states that already have drug programs to move money they are spending for prescription drug coverage to other purposes and replace it with the new block grant. Instead of increasing drug coverage, reaching more people, the federal government will be providing new money without providing new assistance
•  "Immediate Helping Hand" will not be "immediate." Only about half the states currently have prescription drug assistance programs in place. It will take months, even years, to get programs up and running in the rest of the states
•  Experience has demonstrated that existing state pharmaceutical programs reach less than one-fourth of the eligible seniors they are supposed to help. They do worse than other means-tested programs in reaching poor seniors
•  "Immediate Helping Hand" does not guarantee a meaningful drug benefit, but instead provides different coverage to different people depending on where they live. Today, some state programs limit drug coverage to certain conditions-such as heart disease, arthritis or diabetes-and do not cover drugs unrelated to these diseases.

"The best way to help low-income seniors is through drug coverage for all seniors and people with disabilities through the Medicare program," Pollack said.

Families USA is the national organization for health care consumers and has issued numerous reports about prescription drug cost burdens for seniors.

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Families USA is the national organization for health care consumers. It is nonprofit and nonpartisan and advocates for high-quality, affordable health care for all Americans.

1201 New York Avenue NW, Suite 1100 · Washington, DC 20005
202-628-3030 · Email: info@familiesusa.org · www.familiesusa.org