EDITORIAL MEDICARE MADNESS NEW PRESCRIPTION PLAN NEEDS AN EMERGENCY INTERVENTION.

THE Medicare Part D prescription drug plan was supposed to make things better by offering more affordable prescriptions to seniors and people with disabilities.

If the intention was to confuse participants to the point where they couldn't get their essential prescriptions or to frustrate pharmacists, well, then, the program has been a resounding success.

Clearly, that wasn't the intention of the new program that began Jan. 1 to serve about 6 million Americans - about 1 million of them in California. Congress spent about two years crafting this program at the urging of President George W. Bush. But even with all that time, the result was a bureaucratic nightmare that has actually hurt many of those it intended to help.

From one end of the country to the other, tens of thousands of poor seniors and people with disabilities, entitled to Medicaid as well as Medicare, have found they were enrolled in programs that don't cover their essential medications or they are getting stuck with huge drug bills they cannot pay. Things have become so bad that governors in dozens of states - including California - have stepped in with emergency help for participants.

And the federal government ordered the private insurers participating in the program to provide a 30-day supply of medication that a patient was taking before a changeover - from a federally aided state program for the poor - and that prescriptions cost no more than $5 for these poor people.

It's surprising that the federal government would even have to take this step. Where were the controls and safety nets that should have been built into such a comprehensive overhaul?

It's commendable that many governors, including Arnold Schwarzenegger, stepped up and threw a safety line to those caught in the Medicare madness. Last week, Schwarzenegger said the state would pay for life-saving medications if they were held up by the problems with the new program. Commendable - but appalling that this scope of intervention was necessary.

Federal officials counter that there are bound to be glitches with any new program and that many savvy seniors have found the program very beneficial.

They promise that once the bugs are worked out, the program will run well. But there are more than just a few bugs. The program's rules are so complicated that it's hard even for those versed in bureaucratese to understand.

It's clear that, despite the years Congress spent working on it, the new Medicare prescription plan needs its own Rx. It's up to Congress to step in and fix this mess immediately.