{"id":2625,"date":"2004-09-27T13:31:11","date_gmt":"2004-09-27T18:31:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/www.thecarpetbaggerreport.com\/archives\/2625.html"},"modified":"2004-09-27T13:31:11","modified_gmt":"2004-09-27T18:31:11","slug":"bushs-medicare-debacle-becomes-amusing","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/bushs-medicare-debacle-becomes-amusing\/","title":{"rendered":"Bush’s Medicare debacle becomes amusing"},"content":{"rendered":"

If you thought it was embarrassing that Republicans are offering $4,000<\/a> to health care consultants who can find senior citizens who are willing to speak out in favor of Bush’s new Medicare scheme, it was just the start of genuine (and amusing) desperation on the issue.<\/p>\n

A Carpetbagger regular named Katie alerted me to an online column written by Lois Larrance Requist that shows just how bad it’s become for the administration. Requist recently wrote an item<\/a> for senior citizens in Valejo, Calif., in which she invited local seniors to contact her if they’d had a positive experience with Bush’s new changes. She got one very quick response, but not from someone she expected to hear from.<\/p>\n

I posted the…column late at night. By the next morning my editor had sent me an email, saying that someone had responded! The CMS [Centers for Medicare & Medicaid Services] in Washington, D.C. wanted me to call them.<\/p>\n

Hoping furiously that I had not miss-stepped myself into trouble with the government, I called the number I had been given.<\/p>\n

What the government wanted to know was who did I know who had used the program successfully. They wanted to interview this person, take videos, give this person their 15 minutes of fame.<\/p>\n

When I said that I did not know anyone as yet, they asked me to call them back as soon as someone responded to the column with their experience.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Can you say, “desperate”?
\n
\nI mean, really. This elderly woman had posted the column online one night and the very next morning an administration official was on the phone, looking for a senior citizen to exploit. I can only imagine the conversation that took place when Requist returned the phone call to the CMS…<\/p>\n

“But the column has only been posted over night. No one’s even seen it yet.”<\/p>\n

“Well, how about now? Any responses now?”<\/p>\n

“No, I’m afraid my email inbox is still empty.”<\/p>\n

“But you may have gotten a response while you were saying that. Could you check again? And how about voice mail? And snail mail?”<\/p>\n

“Look, I’d be happy to call you if…”<\/p>\n

“Now? How about now? Any happy Medicare recipients now?”<\/p>\n

“I should probably get going. I…have another call. Yeah, that’s it, a call on the other line.”<\/p>\n

“Maybe it’s someone who likes the new Medicare changes. Go check. I’ll hold.”<\/p>\n

Alas, Requist solicited responses way back on June 22nd. No one the administration can exploit has come forward.<\/p>\n

As of now, no one has informed me that they have successfully used the program. Maybe if they knew 15 minutes of fame was waiting them, they would have written. <\/p>\n

One person told me that her mother-in-law (someone who uses a lot of medication) looked into it but did not find any way of saving money through the program.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

No word on how many more times Bush administration officials have contacted her, just in case.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

If you thought it was embarrassing that Republicans are offering $4,000 to health care consultants who can find senior citizens who are willing to speak out in favor of Bush’s new Medicare scheme, it was just the start of genuine (and amusing) desperation on the issue. A Carpetbagger regular named Katie alerted me to an […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[617],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2625","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-general"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2625"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2625\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2625"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2625"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/stevebenen.com\/thecarpetbaggerreport\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2625"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}