I recently accompanied my frail, elderly 92-year-old mother to a senior community meeting outlining the Medicare Part D drug benefit program. I was not prepared for what I heard during the two and one half hour presentation.

At the meeting, she was charged with the responsibility of guiding senior citizens through the Byzantine complexities of Part D. She did her valiant best.

Taking pages of notes myself, I observed her slowly, carefully proceed through a detailed slide presentation augmented by four (small print) handouts to the 100 or so people attending the meeting.

Not only is Part D mind-numbingly complex in terms of eligibility requirements, but it strands enrollees in a benefit gap between $2,251 and $5,100 of drug costs, while asking the elderly to select from an enormous number of regional plans (9 in Wisconsin, 119 in Illinois currently) being offered by insurance companies.

Further, Part D places no controls over the pharmaceutical industry's formularies (the drugs they agree to include in their specific plans), nor any caps on prices. In addition, Part D includes punitive premium penalties for those seniors unable to navigate the myriad confusing options they face before the May 15, 2006, enrollment deadline.

In other words, our congressional leaders have once again written a blank check to the pharmaceutical and insurance industries, while at the same time enacting legislation no sane person can understand.

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