..::: NEWS RELEASE
..::: OCTOBER 28, 2003
AFCM's Plea to Seniors: Just Say No to Prescription Subsidies
NEWPORT BEACH, CALIFORNIA—With Democrats and Republicans hammering
out a compromise over prescription drug subsidies for seniors, Americans
for Free Choice in Medicine is reminding people that the bill's catalyst
was an Iowa widow during the 2000 presidential campaign.
"Winifred Skinner confronted Al Gore during a
campaign stop and proclaimed that she spent most of her days collecting
cans to cover both her living expenses and her prescription costs of
$230 a month," AFCM recently explained in an op-ed. "But when reporters
began asking questions about Mrs. Skinner, the widow¹s tale grew mighty
tall."
"It turned out that Mrs. Skinner, who had been
planning a trip to Florida, was shuttled to Boston in a Winnebago with
her poodle, Bridget, which she affectionately dubbed "the only family
I've got". Gore's campaign finally admitted that they had paid for her
travel—and it was revealed that a she had a wealthy son, who lived on
an 80-acre ranch and had pleaded with his mother to accept his support.
But Mrs. Skinner had refused her son's generosity."
"With Republicans ready to stick Americans with a $
400 billion subsidy, the claim that Medicare expansion will save seniors
from rising prescription drug costs is, like the notion of Mrs. Skinner
collecting cans to pay for prescriptions, false," AFCM says.
"For the sake of their chosen heirs, if not for
themselves, America's grandparents ought to just say no to drug
subsidies for seniors," AFCM wrote. "Adding prescription drug coverage
to Medicare is the largest government intervention in the economy in
nearly 40 years—and a leap toward socialized medicine."
Americans for Free Choice in Medicine, (AFCM),
founded in 1993, publishes a consumer's guide and tutorial to MSAs on
its Web site and it is the nation's only educational organization based
on individual rights, personal responsibility and free market ideas in
medicine.
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Copyright © 2003 Americans for Free Choice in Medicine. All rights reserved.
For reprint permission, contact AFCM.
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