Open Letter to Rep. Frank LoBiondo

Dear Congressman LoBiondo:Your hasty exit from the Atlantic County meeting you convened this afternoon [December 19] to explain the new Medicare D Drug benefit to your constituents was disappointing. The bureaucrats you left to do the explaining did the best they could to make the impossibly complicated plan comprehensible, but they could not help coming up short, again and again referring questioners to the Medicare website ( though most had not raised their hands when they¹d been asked if they had internet access) and suggesting we call 800 numbers, which they admitted would be busy for long intervals.What I had hoped to hear, as a taxpayer and Medicare recipient, was the reason no attempt was made by Congress to negotiate with the drug companies for good prices, and why the tremendous cost overun wasn¹t foreseen It looks like the insurance companies, drug companies, and chain pharmacies will be the real beneficiaries of this ill-conceived plan, while taxpayers and small independent pharmacies will be losers and many seniors will still be unable to afford medicines they need.When a member of the audience criticized Medicare D applause broke out. The next questioner also criticized the plan to enthusiastic clapping, whereupon one of your aides snatched the microphone from him. While we spend billions in Iraq installing by force what we call democracy, what is happening to democracy at home?

SALLY LAIRD McINENERY

Corbin City