Leave it to the federal government to make something more complex than it needs to be. These are the same folks that brought us the tax code in the end, and we're all still trying to figure that one out.
Bewildered by the complexity of the new Medicare outpatient prescription benefit, seniors will not be rushing to sign up, according to a comprehensive survey released Thursday as open enrollment approaches.
Although the government has spent more than $250 million to promote and explain the benefit, only 20 percent of seniors have initially made up their minds to enroll, the survey by the Kaiser Family Foundation and the Harvard School of Public Health found.
An additional 37 percent said they would not sign up, while 43 percent said they had not decided what to do.
The open enrollment runs from Tuesday to May 15.
If the doubts harden into disdain, that could force major changes to one of President Bush's top domestic policy accomplishments.
"The potential is grim," acknowledged John Rother, policy director of AARP, the seniors' lobby, which lent critical support in winning congressional approval of the program.
"If only 20 percent or even 30 percent of seniors sign up, that is every negative for the future of the program because the people most likely to sign up are the people with high drug expenses, and you don't have insurance if you don't spread the risk among people who are healthy," Rother explained.
The government has estimated that about two-thirds of seniors will sign up in the first year. But many appear to be stumped
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