President Trump is pushing the Department of Health and Human Services to rush letters to seniors alerting them of the administration’s plans to award Medicare recipients $200 each to purchase prescription drugs.
The Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services, inside HHS, is spearheading the $8 billion program in conjunction with the White House. It is unclear if the $200 credit-card style vouchers can be produced and delivered to the nation’s 39 million Medicare users before Election Day, as Trump had hoped. So in addition, the administration is sending letters to seniors promoting the effort that could hit mailboxes next week.
“The goal is to begin the test by distributing cards starting in October 2020,” read a draft proposal of the prescription drug voucher plan obtained by Politico, which first reported the story.
Trump trails Democratic nominee Joe Biden by 9.7 percentage points nationally, according to the RealClearPolitics average of recent polls. The former vice president is maintaining a smaller but still durable lead of 4.6 points in battleground states. Biden’s advantage is built on substantial support from voters 65 and older, an age group Trump won four years ago with 52% of the vote.
The president’s struggles with this group come after eight months of the coronavirus pandemic that has proven most deadly for older people and dissatisfaction with his leadership on the issue. Trump, currently recovering from his bout with COVID-19, released a pre-recorded video from the White House Thursday urging seniors not to be afraid of contracting the coronavirus and promising that a cure was forthcoming.
“We have medicines right now, and I call them a cure,” Trump said. “We’re taking care of our seniors — you’re not vulnerable, but they like to say the vulnerable, but you’re the least vulnerable.”
Democrats are criticizing Trump’s plan to provide $200 drug vouchers to seniors as election-year politics. The White House has said the president is delivering on his promise to lower the costs of prescription drugs for seniors and all Americans.
