SEQUIM — U.S. Sen. Patty Murray got applause right away Monday morning when she declared, “I voted against it.”
She was referring to the 2003 Medicare Part D legislation that this year hurled many senior citizens into deep financial trouble.
Washington’s senior senator, a Democrat from Shoreline, came to the Sequim Senior Center to gather ammunition for what she called “an uphill battle in Congress,” to change Part D’s parameters and perhaps lift patients out of the “doughnut hole,” where Medicare premium payers receive no help from their drug plans.
When a patient’s prescription medication costs reach $2,250, Medicare Part D coverage stops. It resumes when drug costs exceed $5,100.
“The best way I can go back to Washington, D.C., and make the case [for changes], is to hear from you,” Murray told her audience of 60.
Hear she did, from Cheryl Coffman, 59, a diabetic who needs dozens of medications including insulin, which alone costs her $350 a month.
“I’ve been in the ‘Medi-gap’ since July,” Coffman said, meaning she’s fallen into the doughnut hole that requires her to pay out of pocket for her prescriptions.
“There’s no help out there for me,” she said, adding that she expects to end up in the hospital.
“Hopefully I’ll live. Hopefully I’ll still see,” though diabetic complications include blindness.
“There has to be a solution,” Coffman finished.
