No Drug Coverage
As a senior, I am vehemently opposed to a huge drug coverage program for the following reasons:
Two-thirds of all seniors now have some form of coverage; only a small percentage of seniors need help with drug costs. At present, pharmaceutical companies have programs to help the needy. This costs the industry over a billion dollars a year.
Who has made an attempt to sit down with drug manufacturers to work out additional programs to help the needy? Proposals by George W. Bush and Al Gore will break the bank! This is one program Americans cannot afford.
DAVE FISCHER
Irvine
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Our politicians (yes, both parties) spend much rhetoric putting on sackcloth and ashes over the lack of a Medicare prescription benefit. (Many senior HMOs have such a benefit.) Maybe a “fearless” first step by our grief-stricken pols on behalf of their “long-suffering” and “medically deprived” constituencies could be to eliminate the 7.5% of adjusted gross income deductible for medical expenses on their 1040s?
T. EUGENE DAHLGREN
Fullerton
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