Less than a month away from the November election, Trump administration officials are reportedly rushing to implement the president’s recent proposal to send $200 prescription drug discount cards to nearly 40 million Medicare recipients—an $8 billion plan that would be financed by dipping into the Medicare trust fund.
Politico reported Thursday that the administration is “seeking to finalize the plan as soon as Friday and send letters to 39 million Medicare beneficiaries next week, informing seniors of Trump’s new effort to lower their drug costs, although many seniors would not receive the actual cards until after the election.” While the design of the cards has yet to be finalized, officials are reportedly discussing ways to put Trump’s name on them.
In a speech on healthcare in Charlotte, North Carolina, late last month, Trump proclaimed that his administration would “in the coming weeks” be mailing out $200 medicine discount cards to tens of millions of Medicare recipients, an announcement that reportedly caught some officials at the Department of Health and Human Services off guard.
“Nobody’s seen this before, these cards are incredible,” said the president, who is badly trailing Democratic nominee Joe Biden among senior voters in recent polls. “Biden won’t be doing this.”
Politico reported that Seema Verma, administrator of the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, is pressuring officials to have the plan ready to go before Election Day, heightening internal concerns that the discount cards are little more than an attempt to assist Trump’s reelection campaign with taxpayer dollars.
“This is a solution in search of a problem and a bald play for votes in the form of money in pockets,” one unnamed HHS official told Politico.
Margarida Jorge, campaign director for Lower Drug Prices Now, said in a statement that “sending $200 gift cards to seniors before the election is a poor substitute for continuing to let drug corporations jack up their medicine prices afterwards.”
“Yet again, President Trump is trying to bribe his way to re-election,” said Jorge. “Americans need serious reforms that check Pharma’s power to charge whatever they want and to increase prices any time. We don’t need more PR stunts designed to distract us from the reality that President Trump has done more to help the drug corporations with big tax breaks than he has to help seniors struggling to afford medicine.”
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Jake Johnson is a staff writer for Common Dreams. Follow him on Twitter: @johnsonjakep.
a $200 prescription discount card is like throwing a spit into a sea of needs. It is insulting.
Just as insulting as throwing paper towels at Puerto Ricans after Hurricane Maria was.