Issue link: https://www.epageflip.net/i/206475
6A Daily News – Wednesday, November 6, 2013 Opinion DAILY NEWS RED BLUFF TEHAMA COUNTY T H E V O I C E O F T E H A M A C O U NTY S I N C E 1 8 8 5 Greg Stevens, Publisher gstevens@redbluffdailynews.com Chip Thompson, Editor editor@redbluffdailynews.com Editorial policy The Daily News opinion is expressed in the editorial. The opinions expressed in columns, letters and cartoons are those of the authors and artists. Letter policy The Daily News welcomes letters from its readers on timely topics of public interest. All letters must be signed and provide the writer's home street address and home phone number. Anonymous letters, open letters to others, pen names and petition-style letters will not be allowed. Letters should be typed and cannot exceed two double-spaced pages or 500 words. When several letters address the same issue, a cross section of those submitted will be considered for publication. Letters will be edited. Letters are published at the discretion of the editor. 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How to reach us Main office: 527-2151 Classified: 527-2151 Circulation: 527-2151 News tips: 527-2153 Sports: 527-2153 Obituaries: 527-2151 Photo: 527-2153 On the Web www.redbluffdailynews.com Fax Newsroom: 527-9251 Classified: 527-5774 Retail Adv.: 527-5774 Legal Adv.: 527-5774 Business Office: 527-3719 Address 545 Diamond Ave. Red Bluff, CA 96080, or P.O. Box 220 Red Bluff, CA 96080 Prescription changes Editor: My mom is 82 and has Parkinson disease. Humana Medicare (Part D) has been her prescription drug coverage since 2006. My mom asked that I review her SmartSummary Rx statement for September 1-30, 2013 as she thought there might be a change for 2014. I reviewed the statement after work Monday night and on page 8 titled "2014 Drug Change Summary? I noted that her prescribed medication CarbidopaLevodopa-Entacapone — for Parkinson — is no longer covered. I called her neurologist and the receptionist told me to review Humana's website and find an alternate drug that Humana would allow. There are 44 neurology drugs commonly prescribed for Parkinson disease. Of the 44 neurology drugs none of them will be allowed by Humana in 2014. I called Humana and I was told that drugs are added and removed each year by Medicare. I advised them that I went through the list of neurology drugs and not one will be allowed for my mom next year. I asked why Humana would remove all of these drugs and I was told that Medicare makes the decision of what is allowed. I spoke to many different departments and the only option I was given is to have the neurologist ask for a formulary exception. That is where I am at this time. If the formulary exception is denied, the drug will cost approximately $450 per month. I worry about all the people who are not aware of these changes and what will happen if they are denied drugs that they must have. My mom is able to live in her own home and does quite well, but I can't image what her outlook will be without her much needed medication. I understand the need to annually review prescription formularies, and the fact that medications are removed and/or added to the formulary. I however refuse to accept that Humana Medicare (Part D) will not cover any Parkinson disease medication beginning in 2014. I also refuse to believe that this is an isolated incident, and wonder what other medications Humana Medicare will refuse to cover in the future. The prescription CarbidopaLevodopa-Entacapone has allowed my mom to remain in her own home, and is mostly self-sufficient. Denial of this drug will necessitate, at a minimum, in home health care, and possibly require housing her in an assisted living facility. I fail to see how it is in anyone's best interest to deny patients the medications that keep them self sufficient and ultimately it is more fiscally responsible to provide the medication than it is to provide in-home health care or re-housing in an assisted living facility. I fear that references to "death panels" and "life ending" choices are coming to fruition. Ellie Anderson, Los Molinos Proposition 10 dollars are used to deliver services that meet local needs based on local decision-making and priEditor: orities. Working with providers When election time rolls throughout the county, services around, there are often so many are more clearly defined to propositions on the avoid service duplicaballot, it becomes tion, which enhances Your overwhelming to cost effectiveness. read the entire proNobel Prize-winning posals, background, economist, Professor pros and cons and James Heckman, has know exactly how proven every dollar each will impact society if invested in effective early implemented. After a proposi- childhood education pays for tion passes, how often do we itself 10 times over. Locally, track it or wonder how effec- First 5 Tehama has invested tively it has served its purpose? nearly $10-million in programs Fifteen years ago this and services – with giant leaps November, California voters in school readiness activities. approved Proposition 10, the Additionally, First 5 Tehama's Children and Families Act of effectiveness is continually 1998, also known as First 5. tracked and evaluated annualThis initiative added a 50-cent ly. tax on tobacco products. RevFirst 5 exists because the votenues are collected at the state ers understood – when they level and allocated to all 58 originally passed Proposition 10 counties based on the number of and twice voted against efforts live births in each county during to overturn it – that it pays to the previous year. invest in our greatest natural Revenues fund local health resource, our children. And how and wellness, childcare and to do that can only be detereducation programs that pro- mined at the local level. mote early childhood developWonder no more. Voters, you ment for children ages prenatal made a wise investment when to five. Brain development passing Proposition 10. research shows that 90% of Help us celebrate 15 Years brain development occurs dur- for Kids at 11 a.m. Nov. 15 for a ing the first five years of a ribbon cutting and then an open child's life. Children exposed to house to show off all the great healthy, loving, early learning things happening in Tehama environments enjoy greater aca- County. demic achievement, are more Contact First 5 Tehama for likely to graduate from high more information at (530) 528school and college, and less 1395, friend us on Facebook or likely to be involved in crime. visit our website School readiness has a profound www.first5tehama.com. impact on lifelong learning. Denise Snider, Red Bluff An investment in children Turn Your officials STATE ASSEMBLYMAN — Dan Logue, 150 Amber Grove Drive, Ste. 154, Chico, CA 95928, 530-895-4217 STATE SENATOR — Jim Nielsen, 2635 Forest Ave., Ste. 110, Chico, CA 95928, (530) 879-7424, senator.nielsen@senate.ca.gov GOVERNOR — Jerry Brown, State Capitol Bldg., Sacramento, CA 95814; (916) 445-2841; Fax (916) 5583160; E-mail: governor@governor.ca.gov. U.S. REPRESENTATIVE — Doug LaMalfa 506 Cannon House Office Building, Washington, DC 20515, 202-2253076. U.S. SENATORS — Dianne Feinstein (D), One Post Street, Suite 2450, San Francisco, CA 94104; (415) 393-0707. Fax (415) 3930710. Barbara Boxer (D), 1700 Montgomery St., Suite 240, San Francisco, CA 94111; (510) 286-8537. Fax (202) 224-0454. Commentary Letter from Washington Dear American citizens: Millions of you are asking why your health insurance policies are being canceled and the premiums and deductibles for your new policies are, for the majority of you, doubling, tripling or worse. You are particularly upset because President Obama said over and over again that your premiums would go down and you could keep your existing policies and doctors — promises for which The Washington Post Fact Checker gave Obama a fourPinocchio rating. But don't fret, little people. Your government is hard at work making important decisions that you are simply too dumb to make for yourself. Look, if you were not covered by your employer and purchased private insurance to provide protection and care for you and your family, you simply weren't smart enough to go about it right. Sure, you had the ability to choose freely among a fairly wide range of policies, coverage, premiums and deductibles. Some of you preferred highdeductible policies that protected against catastrophic events. You got lower premiums that way. And since you were healthy and hardly needed to visit doctors, you may have thought such a plan made sense for you. But you were wrong — and also very selfish — to choose such substandard plans. ObamaCare makes sure your new policy meets 10 new minimum standards that include coverage for such things as mental health, drug abuse and maternity — even if you are a 51-year-old man who cannot bear children, you must pay for maternity care. The fact is, in order for ObamaCare to work, healthy young people and middle-class people must purchase health insurance at higher costs to cover those who are uninsured or who have preexisting conditions. Sure, many argued there are far simpler and better ways to help the uninsured and Americans who were unable to get insurance due to pre-existing conditions — we could have addressed each challenge in a targeted manner. Many said that dismantling a system that already covered 85 percent of Americans was the wrong way to go about it — that a giant bill, rammed through along highly partisan lines, was no way to "reform" America's highly complex health-care sys- drop and you would keep your tem. Many of these people are now policies and doctors — because gloating about the disastrous roll- you were too dumb to understand his grand vision. out of ObamaCare — It is the same vision they gloat, in particular, many progressives when they hear Obahave advocated for maCare proponents say many years: Once that they had no idea they enough pain is dished would be paying for out, Americans who ObamaCare personally. are too dumb to think But these are tempofor themselves will rary setbacks, little peofinally warm to a radiple. If you want to make cal new government an omelet, you have to health-care system — break some eggs. one that terminates the It's better now that the private insurance federal government is Tom companies that are calling the shots. It's betraising your premiter that the very smart ums and replaces and compassionate bureaucrats in Washington, D.C., them with Medicare for all. Hang in there, little people. are telling insurers and American Smart people in Washington will citizens what they must do. Yes, we knew your premiums soon come to your rescue. Best, would increase and be painful at Your benevolent federal govfirst — for middle-class people who do not qualify for govern- ernment ment subsidies, that is! Tom Purcell, a humor We knew that our disruption of one-sixth of the U.S. economy columnist for the Pittsburgh would cause all kinds of unpleas- Tribune-Review, is nationally ant consequences. But that is part syndicated exclusively by Cagle Cartoons newspaper of our master plan. You see, to make ObamaCare syndicate. Visit Tom on the Web the law of the land, the president at www.TomPurcell.com or ehim at had to tell you what you wanted to mail Purcell@caglecartoons.com. hear — that your premiums would Purcell