Drug Benefits for Elderly

As an internist and geriatrician, I have been forced at times to consider my elderly patients’ ability to pay for their medication rather than simply prescribing the best treatment for a given condition. The Clinton administration’s proposal to subsidize the cost of prescription drugs in the Medicare program is an important step toward ending this unfortunate dilemma.

My enthusiasm for the Clinton program is tempered by the injustice that would remain in the American health care system despite improved benefits for the elderly. Forty-three million Americans have no health insurance. We know that these people get less care, inferior care and sometimes no care at all. In an era that promises budget surpluses, it is time for Congress to realize that a “patients’ bill of rights” should apply to all Americans, not just those who can afford insurance.

DANIEL J. STONE MD

Asst. Clinical Professor of Medicine

UCLA School of Medicine

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Your June 30 editorial is headlined, “Promising Drug Plan,” but The Times did not have me in mind! I get a very small Social Security check each month from which is deducted $45.60 for Medicare--even though I have two excellent lifetime PPO insurance plans (MDs, hospitals, prescriptions, etc.) through former employers. I rarely make use of Medicare. Now I read that my monthly deductions will rise an additional $44 for prescription coverage that I do not need. The lesson is, I guess, why try to provide for one’s retirement?

DEVON SHOWLEY

Cypress

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Your editorial wonders why I “dismissed Clinton’s proposal as unnecessary.” Well, I’m happy to say that I didn’t. In fact, there is a great need, but as The Times also noted, there are serious flaws in the president’s program, too.

My concern is that President Clinton will succeed in displacing the prescription coverage that 63% of seniors already have, and we will ultimately be forced into price controls and rationing of drugs.

It isn’t a matter of whether Medicare ought to offer a prescription drug benefit--of course it should--but whether we’re going to help those who need it most or launch the president’s “universal” program. Shouldn’t the new drug benefit go to the one-third of retirees who need it?

Let’s start off by doing what the majority of Democrats and Republicans on the national Medicare commission recommended: providing $61-billion worth of prescription drug coverage to retirees who currently have none.

SEN. PHIL GRAMM

R-Texas