Tornado Alley (PROG)

[F6]

Daschle asks for drug card/food stamp clarification

WASHINGTON (AP) — Food stamp recipients will not see reductions in their monthly allotments if they get a Medicare drug discount card and $600 credit, the Agriculture Department said Friday.

The hasty announcement of a revised policy, issued despite the government's closure for former President Reagan's funeral, was to clarify a disagreement between Medicare and state food stamp officials about whether the drug card subsidy should be considered when calculating food stamps.

Citing USDA policy, some state officials said that if household drug expenses decrease, more money should be available for food and less money should come from the government to pay for food. A USDA memo issued in March reinforced this view, noting that food stamp recipients "may not claim a medical deduction for the cost of any prescriptions they receive free through use of the card."

However, Mark McClellan, who runs the Medicare program, insisted this week that the Medicare law clearly said otherwise. "New benefits ... cannot take away any existing federal benefits," McClellan told Senate Democratic leader Tom Daschle. The South Dakota senator had complained that a constituent reported she was going to lose food stamps because she signed up for a drug card with a $600 low- income credit.

Daschle said the disagreement illustrated another sign of confusion in the drug card program, no matter who was eventually proved to have been right.

On Friday, USDA, which runs the food stamp program, said the Medicare position was correct. "We will immediately be clarifying policy guidance to ensure that food stamp applicants or recipients who use the new Medicare discount card will experience no impact on their eligibility or benefits," Eric Bost, USDA undersecretary for food, nutrition and consumer services, said.

More than 3 million people have signed up for the discount cards, but most were enrolled automatically by their health maintenance organizations. Enrollment of people eligible for the subsidy has been lagging.

The cards are intended to be temporary, in effect only until prescription drug insurance under Medicare begins in 2006. They are designed to allow people without prescription drug insurance to benefit from lower prices available through group purchasing.

On the Net:

Medicare: http://www.medicare.gov

This Article was published online on Saturday, June 12, 2004

© The Rapid City Journal.

http://www.rapidcityjournal.com/articles/2004/06/12/news/state/news02.txt