For GOP, Time for Soothing, Selling

Amid Criticism of New Drug Plan, Lawmakers Try to Reassure Angry Seniors

BATAVIA, N.Y. -- Republicans are using town meetings and other outreach efforts to try to tamp down senior citizens' outrage over the complicated and troubled new Medicare prescription drug program, as they look warily toward the November elections and the possibility of a political backlash.

Here in western New York, Georgie Bifarella, 78, had a strong message for Rep. Thomas M. Reynolds (R-N.Y.) during a recent community workshop on the drug benefit: "I think it stinks." Like many other of the 75 elderly citizens at the session, Bifarella was frustrated by the program's thicket of rules and restrictions, including the penalty for Medicare recipients who enroll in a plan after the current May 15 deadline.

But after a Reynolds district director took Bifarella aside after the meeting and patiently responded to her concerns and put in a plug for one of the least expensive plans, Bifarella replied: "I still don't understand the darn thing, but I guess now I'll look around for something like that."

Both parties struggled for years to fill the most glaring gap in Medicare coverage -- prescription medications -- but the Republican-led Congress finally pushed drug coverage over the finish line in December 2003. Democrats complained that the benefit was underfunded and represented a handout to the drug and insurance industries. On Jan. 1, the new benefit took effect.

"We promised -- and we produced," said Reynolds, chairman of the National Republican Congressional Committee. "But this is a big job. We need to help people get plugged in."

Nearly three weeks into the start of the new program, tens of thousands of elderly and disabled Americans, their pharmacists and their governors are struggling to resolve start-up problems, many of which have resulted in people being turned away or being overcharged. The uproar prompted some states to cover the drug costs of some of the 6.4 million low-income seniors, who until Dec. 31 received their medication free but who now faced a maze of large deductibles, co-payments and outright denial of coverage.

Last weekend, the Bush administration intervened by reminding pharmacists and insurers to guarantee that low-income seniors were to receive their drugs for a nominal co-payment. Health and Human Services Secretary Mike Leavitt and other top administration health advisers began fanning out across the country this week to try to quell mounting discontent with the program.

"You can hear the groans everywhere," said Rep. Rahm Emanuel (Ill.), chairman of the Democratic Congressional Campaign Committee, who held a Medicare event in his Chicago district last week.

Andrew Kohut, president of the Pew Research Center, said a survey in December found that although a plurality of voters favors the program, seniors are more likely to perceive the benefit as complicated and costly.

Nor is there any assurance that the Republicans' rollout will diminish widespread concerns. As the midterm elections approach, Kohut said, "This could be either the one thing that people say either, 'Wow, they really accomplished something here,' or they say, 'Look at what the Republicans have done. They've fattened up their insurance buddies and left us out in the cold.' "

The prospect of a crisis in the Medicare drug program, coming during a congressional corruption scandal and a shake-up of the House GOP leadership, is politically terrifying to some Republicans. This helps to explain why so many GOP lawmakers invested a large portion of the winter recess trying to calm down their elderly constituents.

"In sheer volume of outreach, I can't think of anything that compares in recent memory," said George Kelemen, campaign manager for AARP's outreach effort.