Cunning Plan

[akirlu]

Today is the last day for senior citizens to sign up for the new "drug benefit" plan if they want it, and so NPR is doing a piece on it, and I hear, for the first time in my recollection, this fascinating little facty nugget: the only way you can do a full benefits comparison between the available plans is via the internet. Let me repeat that. This is a program that's aimed at seniors. And the only way they can fully inform themselves is via a technology that, statistically, they are the least likely age cohort to be conversant with? Apparently they could also phone up a helpline and someone at the other end could get online and do the research *for* them, but other than that, too bad, so sad folks.

Who thinks this shit up?

Comments

[readwrite.livejournal.com]

I just spent about 30 or 40 minutes signing my mother up for this stuff. I had all the information ready--that took some doing, since I'm in NY and she's in MD. I would've liked to have time to do it on the Internet, but I'm sure it would've taken even longer there. But yeah--my mother is still compos mentis, but she's 88, bedridden, more or less blind, and tires easily. And refused, even when she was a bit healthier, to have anything to do with PCs--probably a blessing, given her mail-order habits; eBay could've been a disaster.