wactivist.com

While you might not know listening to Republicans today, the deadline for signing up for Medicare Part-D without incurring lifetime penalties expires at midnight.

Knowing that the GOP was about to take another hit on what people have creatively called Medicare Part-D(isaster) or Medicare Part-D(eclined) – Rove has taken a page from his usual playbook and decided to steal the news cycle and distract the country with a divisive issue. Nope – not gays this time … but immigration.

While I will write more later about the impact of President Bush’s decision to do what Governor Napolitano asked him to do in her state of the state address later, right now the TIMING of this announcement is what is compelling to me.

If you don’t understand this whole part D thing, don’t worry – you aren’t the only one. In fact, things are so confusing right now that the Republic today reported that only 1 in 10 of Arizona’s poor are signed up despite being eligible, the worst in the country.

So what happens to the 90% of these folks who don’t sign up on time? Well, I suspect many of them will NEVER sign up – it is just too damn complicated and the government doesn’t seem to value them enough to help them. But let’s say that we get to these people and convince them to sign up – well, for being late they will be penalized for the rest of their life.

Yup—the people who enroll after today’s deadline will face a tough penalty on an extra 1% in monthly premiums for each month they are late. The number I am hearing batted around for how many Arizonan’s this could effect is well over 150,000. Don’t forget, that is JUST IN OUR STATE … not nationally.

Of course with their typical slight of hand, the only coverage the Republicans will be concerned about today is “news coverage”, the health needs of “America’s Greatest Generation” today will play second fiddle to their furious attempts to not lose Congress.

Personally, I think Jon Kyl is among the WORST when it comes to this issue. Senator “Who?” constantly talks about this plan as one of his crowning achievements in the Senate – and despite his state being left in the dust enrollment wise … he still talks about how PEACHY everything is.

I know prescription drugs aren’t the sexiest political issue for those of us in the “younger” age brackets – but this is BIG BIG problem that needs to be addressed and fast. If we can’t get some people in the House and Senate who actually care about the people they serve – then we are going to be inhereting yet ANOTHER screwed up policy from our parents that will take us years to fix to make sure we don’t pass them on to OUR kids.

Instead, for now at least, the GOP / Fox / Rove gang will do all they can to make us FORGET.