Republican Response To Disastrous Rollout Of Medicare Part D Very Different

There were no congressional hearings, and no nasty comments from Democrats when President Bush’s Medicare Part D rollout was just as bad as the rollout of Obamacare.

A few weeks into the launch of the most sweeping health care reform law in a generation, John Boehner declared that the implementation was a disaster.

“The implementation,” the Republican leader said, “has been horrendous. We’ve made it far more complicated than it should be.”

…But did he want to repeal the benefit? No. The future Speaker soberly acknowledged the problems but saw potential in the law and called for improving it. “The good news is that the competition that’s being created has lowered premiums significantly below where Congress thought they’d be when we put the bill together, so the competition side is good,” he said. “I think the implementation side continues to need to be improved.”

… Upon launch, the Bush administration admitted to receiving “tens of thousands of complaints by seniors, pharmacists and others” about implementation failures. Health and Human Services vowed to “fix every problem as quickly as possible.”

Boehner was far from alone in pushing to fix the problematic law, rather than repealing or dismantling it. And his judgment was vindicated — the Medicare Part D program turned out to be a success, expanding medical coverage for millions of seniors at a lower cost than many expected…

“This is a huge undertaking and there are going to be glitches,” said Rep. Joe Barton (R-TX) on Feb. 15, 2006. “My goal is the same as yours: Get rid of the glitches.”

…Republican Rep. Nathan Deal, now the governor of Georgia, cautioned critics that “most significant programs” have problems early on, and that’s no reason to give up on them.

“Like most significant programs, the new benefit has not gone without a few isolated glitches and unexpected problems,” he said at the same hearing. “But I believe that if there is anything wrong with the plan, most of it has been fixed and that that hasn’t can be fixed over time.”

By: Alan

Alan Colmes is the publisher of Liberaland.