Wednesday, Aug. 28, 2002 | 9:45 a.m.
For many Southern Nevada seniors, monthly financial choices are clear-cut, if tough: pay for prescription drugs that keep them healthy or pay the rent.
A plan put forward by House Democrats will change that, Rep. Shelley Berkley, D-Nev., told a group of Medicare recipients Tuesday at a town hall meeting. Seniors now spending hundreds of dollars a month to buy prescription drugs will be able to get prescription coverage through Medicare for a $25-a-month premium and 20 percent co-pay.
In July the House Ways and Means Committee approved the Republican-sponsored Medicare Modernization and Prescription Drug Act, which provides a voluntary prescription drug benefit as an entitlement to Medicare recipients.
Berkley, who is running for re-election, used the town hall meeting to take aim at the Republican plan, which she says does not guarantee coverage for seniors. Calling it a "subsidy to insurance companies," the congresswoman said it requires recipients to get coverage through private insurance, which can offer varying benefits and premiums.
The Democrats' plan would remove insurance companies from the equation, with the drug benefits going directly to the recipients, she said.
"Under the Republican plan, very little is spelled out," Berkley said. "There's no uniformity."
Amy Spanbauer, spokeswoman for Rep. Jim Gibbons, R-Nev., shot back, calling the plan proposed by the Democrats unwieldy and costly, and saying it could bankrupt the federal budget.
"We want to create a prescription drug benefit but we also want to be fiscally responsible," Spanbauer said.
Cost remains the primary difference between the two plans, said Jack Finn, spokesman for Las Vegas Councilwoman Lynette Boggs McDonald, who is challenging Berkley for the 1st Congressional District seat.
"The Republican plan focuses on a more responsible price tag," Finn said.
And it's an approach that is already proven in Nevada, Finn said. Gov. Kenny Guinn's Senior Rx program, which provides prescription drug coverage for seniors with annual incomes of less than $21,500, provides area seniors with a "menu of insurers."
The problem with that example, Berkley said, is that it focuses strictly on low-income seniors, neglecting those in the middle and working classes who are having trouble making ends meet because of high prescription costs.
Las Vegans Dilworth Wagstaff and his wife, Glen, who attended Berkley's town hall meeting, fit into that middle ground.
Even with supplemental insurance for prescriptions, Wagstaff estimated he and his wife spend $400 per month on prescriptions.
"We spend more than that," Glen Wagstaff said to her husband. "We spend $122 for one prescription alone."
The high cost each month doesn't keep the Wagstaffs from paying their rent or utilities, but it doesn't leave much left over for the 82-year-old retired chemical salesman and his wife.
"You have to buy your medication," Dilworth Wagstaff said. "You just don't have much left to spend."
The Democratic plan, while expensive, will save money in the long run by reducing emergency room visits and hospital stays, Berkley said.
"Anyone suggesting this is too expensive is not factoring in cost savings," Berkley said.
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