With the Affordable Care Act now in full effect, the conservative propaganda factory is working overtime to produce and publicize Obamacare horror stories, real or imagined. So with the federal government, the states, private insurers, hospitals, doctors, and pharmacies scrambling to assist the six million newly insured so far, the GOP's media water carriers are decrying enrollment snafus, delayed surgeries, emergency fixes in the states, and even national drugstore chains providing a month of prescriptions to customers whose proof of insurance is in limbo. (Breitbart went so far as to suggest that Walgreens and Walmart might be offering that customer service in order to do data mining for Uncle Sam.)

As it turns out, these furious conservatives are suffering from a particularly acute case of selective amnesia. Just eight years ago this week, the calamitous launch of President Bush's Medicare prescription drug program left over six million previously insured seniors without coverage. Hundreds of thousands more could not get their medications as problem-plagued government computer systems, confused insurers, and undertrained pharmacists left subscribers panicked and helpless. But unlike today's sabotage of the Affordable Care Act by Republicans in Congress and in the states, Democrats at all levels helped the Medicare Rx program whose design they opposed.

As the Washington Post reported in January 2006:



Two weeks into the new Medicare prescription drug program, many of the nation's sickest and poorest elderly and disabled people are being turned away or overcharged at pharmacies, prompting more than a dozen states to declare health emergencies and pay for their life-saving medicines.

Please read below the fold for more on Bush's Medicare drug rollout issues.