As Monday?s deadline looms to sign up for the Medicare prescription drug program, Lt. Gov. Michael Steele, running for U.S. Senate, is asking Congress and the president to extend the deadline to the end of the year.
This puts the Republican at odds with the president?s position and in agreement with most of the Democrats running for Senate.
“More than 230,000 Marylanders have yet to enroll in Medicare?s new prescription drug program,” Steele said in a statement. Once the deadline is pushed back, he said “we should step back and study which seniors have not already enrolled for the new drug benefits and why.”
“Only in Washington would a popular program penalize those who would benefit from it because government cannot adequately explain how it works,” Steele said.
While Steele differs with the president on the deadline issue, “he does think it?s a good program,” said campaign spokesman Doug Heye, and wants more people to participate, though other aspects of the program could be improved as well.
The Democrats in the Senate race not only don?t like the deadline; in general, they don?t think it?s a very good program at all. Rep. Ben Cardin actively opposed the passage of the program in Congress and voted against it.
Cardin campaign manager Ken Morley called Steele?s statement “political opportunism.” “Ben Cardin has put forward a plan to fix the president?s drug program, Michael Steele has been silent,” Morley said. “Ben Cardin demonstrated leadership and has repeatedly called for an extension of the deadline. Michael Steele waited until four days before the deadline to speak up.”
With 180 different plans to choose from, the program is “flawed” and “complicated,” complained candidate Dennis Rasmussen, a former Baltimore County executive. The program “was established to benefit the pharmaceutical companies and the prescription benefit managers,” he said, since the big drug companies “own the White House.” That?s why the states were prohibited from negotiating directly with drug companies to reduce costs, Rasmussen said.
“Suggesting that the May 15 deadline should remain in place because of some need for finality ? or for the sake of the deadline itself ? does not take our seniors? best interests to heart. Instead, it suggests an inside-the-Beltway mentality that our seniors exist for Washington ? instead of the other way around. That?s exactly the kind of attitude I am going to Washington to change.”
