Medicare Part D

It probably was a mistake for republicans to roll out this clusterfuck in an election year. Twenty states have had to pass emergency legislation to cover the elderly who are being denied prescription drug coverage. From the Chicago Sun Times:

The Medicare drug program that was supposed to win political points for Republicans has exploded in their faces as this election year has begun. It's a particularly vexing problem for the GOP, since older Americans are such active voters and no one seeking office wants to see them angry.

Since the Bush administration's prescription medicine program began on Jan. 1, tens of thousands of elderly people have been unable to get medicines promised by the government. Some 20 states have had to jump in to help them.

What's the Bush administration's response? They are going to return to the only thing they know about governance, which is campaigning. From the Washington Post:

President Bush's top health advisers will fan out across the country this week to quell rising discontent with a new Medicare prescription drug benefit that has tens of thousands of elderly and disabled Americans, their pharmacists, and governors struggling to resolve myriad start-up problems.

Unless they're planning a barnstorming tour in the new medmobile, they're probably not going to find many sympathetic ears. Hard to believe a prescription drug plan written by republicans and the pharmaceutical industry doesn't favor people over corporate interests, isn't it.