Prescription drug plan is 'good deal,' Bush says

Enrollment seminars are being held across the country.
JEFFERSON CITY, Mo. (AP) -- President Bush, trying to rouse public interest in the new Medicare prescription drug benefit, urged seniors in the Midwest on Tuesday to sign up for the program before the May 15 deadline.
"I'm just telling you it's a good deal," he said.
Bush's visits with seniors in Missouri and Iowa are part of the administration's grass-roots effort to ramp up enrollment in the program, which suffered startup problems and continues to be criticized as too confusing.
"I urge people not to listen to the noise and all the politics -- just get that out of the system -- and see whether or not the prescription drug coverage makes sense," Bush said in Des Moines, Iowa. "If you're a poor senior, this program will help you a lot."
"Every senior is saving money, and that's what people have got to know," said the president, who is hosting another Medicare prescription drug event today at Northern Virginia Community College in suburban Washington.
More than 1,000 enrollment seminars are being held across the country each week to educate seniors about their options for signing up. Bush stopped at a senior center here where retirees who had learned about the program wore stickers that read, "I signed up. Have you?"
Enrolled
Mark McClellan, Bush's chief Medicare official who traveled with him on the trip, said more than 29 million seniors have enrolled so far. That number, however, includes at least 20 million people who were automatically enrolled because of their participation in other government programs, such as Medicaid, or are getting drug coverage through their former employer.
McClellan said seniors are signing up at a rate of about 400,000 each week. People who sign up after the May 15 deadline probably will have to pay higher premiums.
Democrats opposed to the program claim the plan was written by lobbyists and will cost nearly double what the president first claimed -- $700 billion during the next decade compared with early estimates of $400 billion.
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