Medicare Contractor Firm Donates to GOP

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=7&u=/ap/20040511/ap_on_el_pr/medicare_card_politics

An executive with one company, Medco, helped throw a $100,000 fund-raiser for President Bush (news - web sites) a few weeks after the business won approval to offer a drug card. Health and Human Services (news - web sites) Secretary Tommy Thompson headlined the event.

snip

In all, companies that won approval from Thompson's department to be the first Medicare drug discount card providers spent at least $35 million lobbying in 2003, and their executives and lobbyists donated or raised hundreds of thousands of dollars more for Bush's re-election effort, an Associated Press review found.

It looks worse everyday for this bill. I can't believe the GOP is messing with this voting block any way, these are some of the most informed and active voters.

I read that Mark McClellan said the other day that the bill will save people between 10 and 17 percent on drugs. That is so much lower than what they were originally saying, and really not even worth it considering these companies can change their formularies once every 7 days (but people can only change cards once a year), but I bet they won't start screwing people til after the election and Kerry is President.

Nancy Pelosi had a great press conference where she showed that people will actually save more money by getting a card at Costco or Walgreens. This is important because once you choose a card you can only have one, unlike in the past where seniors could have a handful of cards and choose the one that would benefit in each situation.

...we've already seen this story three times.

Here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=546553

Here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=545637

And here:
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_topic&forum=102&topic_id=545213