Drug plan only creates frustration

Re “Your government on drugs,” editorial, Nov. 14

My wife and I, both seniors and health professionals, struggled to understand the new Medicare prescription benefit, without much success. It should really be called the “Insurance and Pharmaceutical Industry Benefit Act.” The fact that Congress passed this law proves to me that the members are disconnected from their constituents’ needs. They have awarded themselves lifetime healthcare benefits, yet 45 million citizens are without health insurance. It’s time for a universal healthcare system that gets rid of a wasteful insurance industry and negotiates prices with the drug manufacturers.

MELVIN H. KIRSCHNER MD

Van Nuys

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Your editorial on the Medicare prescription drug plan fails to mention that members of Congress who initiated this program will not have to sign up for it. As we all know, they are privileged and have their own plan that provides them with free medication without needing to traverse the complexities of this new debacle. How and why members of Congress should be allowed to monitor a program they themselves will not participate in is a travesty against the American people.

GENE DORIO MD

Santa Clarita