Low-income seniors pass on Medicare drug cards

WASHINGTON -- Low-income enrollments are lagging for the new Medicare drug discount cards that took effect yesterday, Health and Human Services Secretary Tommy G. Thompson said.

All but about a half-million of the 2.87 million cards approved by the government so far have been issued to people who participate in Medicare managed care plans and who were automatically enrolled in the card offered by their insurer, Thompson told reporters.

Medicare chief Mark McClellan said hundreds of thousands of disabled and older Americans with low incomes are ''enrolled now or are in process." He and Thompson declined to be more specific.

However, Thompson said, ''We are somewhat concerned that the low-income seniors, which this card is really going to be helpful to, have not signed up in the numbers that they have. We are going to be putting all-court pressure on them to sign up."

Thompson said that pressure will not, however, extend to a step many seniors advocates favor: automatically enrolling a large group of poorer Medicare beneficiaries. McClellan has said his agency would consider automatic enrollment if recruitment falls short of its goal.

The Bush administration projected that 7.3 million Medicare recipients would get cards, which can cost up to $30 a year. The enrollment number includes 4.7 million with incomes low enough to receive $600 from the federal government this year and again in 2005 to pay pharmacy bills.

''There is no sense to leave this money on the table," Thompson said.

The discount cards are intended as a temporary measure until prescription drug insurance under Medicare begins in 2006. In theory, they allow individuals with no prescription drug insurance to benefit from lower prices available through group purchasing.

The administration says the cards will save their users up to 18 percent on average off retail prices for brand-name prescription medicines.

Pharmacies around the country reported little activity on the first day. ''It's not like the latest ''Lord of the Rings" DVD hitting the market and everyone running out," said Michael Polzin, a spokesman for Walgreen Co. The drugstore chain operates 4,400 stores in the United States and also has issued ''tens of thousands" of Medicare-approved discount cards.

Critics of the program and of the Medicare law overall continued to question the size of the discounts being claimed by the administration.

Senate minority leader Tom Daschle and other Democratic senators plan to join with the consumer group Families USA to point to better prescription prices that are available through the Veterans Administration, which negotiates directly with drug manufacturers.