America's senior citizens have had a few weeks to consider Medicare's Part D choices, and so has Families USA, a consumer watchdog group that recently released a comparison of 20 prescription drugs seniors typically take.

The folks on Medicare seem more confused now than when the cornucopia of options was first spread out before them. There is, however, no confusion at Families USA. Here are a couple of examples of what the group's comparison shopping discovered:

The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs pays $253 for a year's supply of Protonix, a common drug used to combat acid reflux, which is a common medical condition for veterans and many Americans. The least-expensive prescription Protonix costs from the companies doing Medicare Part D business is $1,080 a year.

There's more. The VA pays $497 for a year's supply of Lipitor, a cholesterol-lowering drug, but the lowest price from any of the Part D providers is $718.

In fact, Families USA studied a list of the 20 most-prescribed drugs for seniors, and the median price differential between Medicare Part D providers and the VA is 48 percent. In other words, Part D patients will be paying half again as much for their prescription drugs as are recipients of a parallel federal program for veterans.

Why the big discrepancy? After all, didn't the Bush administration say seniors would love all those choices, and what a good deal Part D would be?

The problem is that President Bush and the corporate toadies in Congress appear to have more sympathy for the drug companies' profit potential from Part D pricing than for the millions of seniors, many of whom will be paying thousands more for their prescriptions each year - simply because the administration and Congress prevented the federal government from negotiating prices, which is what the VA is allowed to do.

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The legislation that created Part D provides for a wide range of choices, but very few bargains. Thanks to our leaders' inclination to protect drug company profits, the cost of Part D has jumped from an estimated $400 billion to $1.2 billion over the next 10 years.

And who's footing the bill? Why, that would be us.

December 28, 2005