A lot has been made about the problems people are having signing up for Obamacare on the Internet.

The GOP has devoted millions of dollars to defeating the Affordable Care Act, and now that they’ve failed to stop it, they complain that it’s too hard to sign up.

One wishes they had just given their millions to charities that assist with health care. They don’t really hate the health care plan so much as they hate Obama.

Republican opposition to health care is not new. Ronald Reagan famously complained that we’d be telling our grandchildren that before we had Medicare, Americans lived in “freedom.”

Of course, before Medicare — established by President Lyndon Johnson — many older Americans just had the freedom to do without.

Then, President Bush signed a health care plan, Medicare Part D. Bush’s Republican plan — which Democrats supported rather than trying to block — set up a system by which the government paid for most senior citizen drugs, as purchased from various private companies.

The amount one pays depends on several factors, such as what kind of retirement plan you have, and which company you’re assigned to. To hear the critics of Obamacare, you’d think their Bushcare was flawless, with no glitches. Not so.

First, seniors are paying too much for the drugs, because Bushcare forbids the government from negotiating with the drug corporations to lower prices.

We have to pay whatever the drug seller charges. Honest skeptics may debate whether Obamacare will save money, but there’s no disputing that Part D has a high price tag.

What this giveaway to big business has cost the taxpayers and citizens can be calculated by comparing Part D. with the prescription drug program available to veterans, where the VA is allowed to negotiate prices and formularies with the drug companies.

It turns out that Bushcare prescription drugs cost 40 percent more than VA drugs, more than $500 more a year per beneficiary, or about $14 billion a year more for the whole Part D, Bushcare program. This extra cost is one of the main contributors to our deficits and national debt.

Nor was the “rollout” of Bushcare all that smooth when the program began in 2006. According to news reports, “That drug benefit began with one big thud. Its website didn’t work and seniors were turned away when they went to the pharmacy to pick up their pills.”

Mike Leavitt, then Secretary of Health and Human Services, said that even he had a hard time helping his parents pick a plan.

Part D Medicare is now a big success, of course, though costing much more than it should.

When I did sign up this year, I found that President Bush’s plan D still has some problems. Mostly, it’s way too bureaucratic.

Consider how many agencies, government and private are involved: The U.S. Department of Health and Human Services; the Social Security Administration, and in my case, State Teachers Retirement System, then those companies hired to actually manage the program, such as Aetna, then those who administer the program, such as Medco and Express Scripts.

Then there are the robotic phone systems with which one interacts. No wonder there are so many mix ups in the program. And as if these companies and agencies weren’t enough, there are other private companies calling and mailing us, trying to sell us some sort of “advantage” plan or some other program from which we might or might not benefit.

And some of their ads and come-on’s try to take advantage of seniors.

Who can blame us for wondering if we ought not try something like the British system, where everyone gets the health care they need, without private companies trying to get their cut, and multiple agencies, all paid for by our tax dollars.

Like the VA system, theirs offers excellent health care at a fraction of what we pay, without all the waste of privatization.

Meanwhile, given the avarice of some of our corporations, and the Neanderthal attitudes of some of our politicians, we’re lucky to have President Johnson’s Medicare, Bush’s Part D–and Obamacare for everyone not yet a senior citizen.

 

Ohio writer, Jack Burgess, is a retired teacher of American Studies and was a member of the Governor’s Commission on Health Care Cost Containment.