Remarks by
Barbara Blakeney, MS, APRN,BC, ANP
President, American Nurses Association
Press Conference on Medicare Prescription Drug Plan
January 28, 2004
Washington, DC

ANA President Barbara A. Blakeney, MS, APRN,BC, ANP, was called on by House Democratic Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) and Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD) to join with other groups concerned with the recently enacted Medicare Prescription Drug plan at a Capitol Hill press conference on Jan. 28.

ANA President Blakeney (right) addresses Medicare press conference. Left: Barbara Kennelly, the National Committee to Preserve Social Security and Medicare; Center: Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle (D-SD)

Good morning and thank you, Minority Leader Daschle and Democratic Leader Pelosi. It is an honor to be here with you today. I am Barbara Blakeney, President of the American Nurses Association and a registered nurse for more than 30 years.

I am here today to announce that America's nurses are deeply disappointed by the benefits offered in the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act. We urged Congress to reject this flawed law. This is not a decision we made lightly. ANA has always supported the mission and philosophical underpinning of the Medicare Program. If fact, we were the first health professional association to endorse the creation of Medicare.

ANA believes that Medicare must remain a broad-based, reliable, social-insurance program that is available to all eligible individuals regardless of income. Unfortunately, this new law fails to uphold these basic principles and places the very promise of Medicare in jeopardy.

America's nurses are daily witnesses to the desperate need for a Medicare drug benefit that provides affordable access to needed medications. The meager benefit provided by the Prescription Drug, Improvement, and Modernization Act clearly does not meet this goal. It maintains a large coverage gap that leaves many beneficiaries without any real assistance, and it is fraught with gimmicks that will deny low-income beneficiaries the help that they need.

For instance, the elderly and disabled will be denied financial help under this law if they have assets totaling as little as six thousand dollars. This means that a senior earning just over twelve thousand dollars a year could be denied assistance in paying large co-payments and deductibles, and they would be subject to the coverage gap - all because they have a little in savings and a late model car. Let there be no mistake - this plan will continue to saddle beneficiaries with prohibitively high medication costs, and leave many without needed drugs. We can not support such a fundamentally flawed plan.

ANA also opposes efforts to privatize Medicare. The Medicare Program was founded nearly 40 years ago precisely because the private market was unable to meet the needs of the elderly and disabled. Yet, the new law relies heavily upon the volatile private market to deliver the meager prescription drug benefit. I urge you not to replace the guarantee of Medicare with risky private plans. The defined benefit structure of Medicare-the fact that it provides a standard benefits package to all beneficiaries-is a fundamental value that should not be compromised.

ANA looks forward to working with this Congress to craft a meaningful prescription drug benefit for Medicare. This new law does not meet this goal.

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ANA is the only full-service professional organization representing the nation's 2.7 million Registered Nurses through its 54 constituent associations. ANA advances the nursing profession by fostering high standards of nursing practice, promoting the economic and general welfare of nurses in the workplace, projecting a positive and realistic view of nursing, and by lobbying the Congress and regulatory agencies on health care issues affecting nurses and the public.

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