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Free market pharmaceutical coverage. (Working Lunch).(Interview)
Wisdom ... is social. She seeks her fellows--Thomas Jefferson
Five expensive plans to buy prescription drugs for Medicare recipients are currently floating around Washington. All promise to create huge and permanent entitlements except one: the free- market-oriented Prescription Drug Security program proposed by AEI economist Joseph Antos, which is now drawing attention from the media and Congress.
TAE: Does the U.S. need a publicly funded prescription drug benefit for all elderly and disabled?
ANTOS: The question of need is always hard. I don't use the word lightly. Paying retail prices for medicines can get expensive fast. Pharmaceuticals are replacing operations and other forms of treatment in many cases. Yet right now, Medicare covers hospital stays but not drugs. We need a financing system that doesn't encourage one sort of treatment over the other. So from a public health standpoint, it does make sense to have a drug benefit.
TAE: What have you proposed?
ANTOS: Grace-Marie Turner and I are proposing a plan we call Prescription Drug Security (PDS). The core of the system is a debit card: It lets transactions be handled in an electronic way and allows any subsidies that you might receive from the government come to you by way of this card. Every person in the system would have an account: either fully subsidized, partially subsidized, or, if you have a higher income, not subsidized at all. Our proposal has a $600 subsidy limit on each account. In addition to these individual accounts there is an insurance policy.
TAE: So how does the insurance work?
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- Magazine article from: World and I Antos, Joseph R. Turner, Grace-Marie March 1, 2003 700+ words
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...focus and attention of the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization...which contains the new voluntary prescription drug program for Medicare-eligible individuals...available to employers who offer retirees prescription drug coverage as part of a group health...