A patient covered by the plan that assigns a $470 price to Actonel would transition into the doughnut hole after about 41/2 months, or in mid-May. (This is assuming he or she had no other prescriptions.) The plan charging $602, however, would land the patient in the hole a full month sooner, thus imposing higher out-of-pocket costs for the year.
It's worth noting that those prices don't necessarily correspond to what each plan actually pays for the drug; they're merely contrived from a formula. Indeed, any patient can purchase a month's supply of Actonel from drugstore.com, an online pharmacy, for $67.99, cash - spending slightly more for a year's supply than some plans charge for a month.
Here's the problem. Once the 3 - 1/2 to 4 - 1/2 months of coverage expire, the user has a choice, buy the Actonel with the prescription drug card and pay a total of $2,850 over five months to get to catastrophic coverage, or pay $815.88 at drugstore.com for enough medication to get you through the rest of the year. It's not a difficult choice.
The coverage is not a donut hole you fall into as initially thought, it's a cliff you fall off.
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Any Republican reform of what the right would call a "social program," which are not necessarily social programs will result in a reduction of benefits.
The long-term aims as stated by organizations like the Heritage Foundation is to return us to the pre-progressive, pre-socialist, lazere frer capitalism that existed before the teapot dome scandal. This is more than 100 years backwards.
This takes us back to when the majority of Americans were farm poor, which really wasn't poor. Now, that most Americans live in cities, the ensuing urban poverty will not be fun at all.
There will be no social services except those provided by the state established religions. There will be no public education, instead church funded parochial schools will provide an education that won't cut it, but no one will care. The wealthy, not the middle-class guy with an equal amount of money, will build castles. Permanent unemployment due to the outsourcing will force Americans to resort to acts of terrorism just like those that attack us now.
To get there, we will got through another great depression with the intention of lowering wage rates under those of the Indians.
NO THANKS!
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