The Bottom Line

Last week I had a conversation with a friend who lost her mother-in-law who spent the last year of her life in a nursing home.

My friend lamented that "we should do something" meaning, the government should provide for the elderly and take care of them in their twilight years.

Noting that ours is a throwaway culture and that most in most other cultures the kids either take their parents and grandparents in to spend their final days as a family, or they have them "put to sleep" as in Belgium and Denmark; my response to her was that "we already are providing for them.

As noted in a recent AARP report, the new medicare prescription drug plan is already proving to be an improvement over what seniors were faced with before.

The AARP report is based on five case studies of what U.S. seniors living in different states would pay out-of-pocket for prescription drugs under the least expensive Medicare drug plan available to them and what they'd pay for the same drugs through Canadian pharmacies.

Four of the five would pay at least $300 less out of pocket annually through Medicare. Those requiring larger amounts of drugs would save more. In only one case was buying from Canada cheaper.
A Republican Senate health policy analyst said the report held no surprises.

"After all, the benefit is insurance, leaving the consumer on the hook only for co-pays and other cost sharing, while buying from Canada means that you have to pay everything out of pocket," the analyst noted.

The AARP report also notes that the Medicare benefit provides low-cost catastrophic coverage once out-of-pocket expenses exceed $3,600. Buying Canadian drugs does not count toward that.

Advocates of cross-border sales were not impressed. Most said the sample in the AARP study was too small to be representative and appeared to be skewed in favor of the benefit.

"A case study of five people is hardly a thorough study," stated Rep. Gil Gutknecht, R-Minn., who is sponsoring a Canadian drug importation bill.

But here is my point, it's hardly a savings for the U.S. citizen. Since the government does not make money through productive activities and therefore, only provides us with what it first takes from us, we the taxpayers are the one's footing the bill for the benefit.