That Pesky Government Accountability Office!

Over at "The Plank," Jonathan Cohn notes a GAO report from December 2005 that warned the Bush administration wasn't exactly ready for the implementation of Medicare Part D on Jan. 1 of this year. You can get the full report here (pdf format). And Matthew Holt over at "The Health Care Blog" provides some good analysis of the report, as well.

The White House is trying to talk over the problems (i.e., public health crises) surrounding the implementation of their signature domestic achievement of 2005 by touting how many people are actually enrolled in the new program. As The Hill reports, about 24 million people are currently enrolled in the program; however, the article goes on to note that "nearly all [85%] of them are enrolled in parts of the program that do not require them to sign up." Not surprisingly, it's those automatically-enrolled people who are facing the most difficulty getting their prescription drugs for the month of January. Quite an achievement.