Medicare was enacted 40 years ago as a promise to the American people that, in exchange for their years of hard work and service to our country, their healthcare would be guaranteed in their golden years. America's senior citizens deserve a comprehensive and affordable healthcare system - and that includes a guaranteed, simple and affordable prescription-drug benefit. The Bush plan fails to meet that standard. In fact, the Medicare prescription-drug law is doing more harm than good. America's seniors can attest to that. In some states, as many as 20 percent of elderly Medicaid recipients have seen their coverage denied. Already overburdened states are being forced to pick up the tab for the White House's incompetence, to the tune of hundreds of millions of dollars. Insurance and pharmaceutical companies are no doubt thrilled with their profits, but this latest Bush boondoggle is a real-life nightmare for state budgets and, worse, for millions of seniors just looking to fill a needed prescription. Seniors were first subjected to the dizzying task of choosing a plan among a slew of competing programs. Yet among the countless pages of confusing information, seniors could not find out the one thing they really wanted to know: Would their drugs be covered under this plan? I know accomplished health professionals who were unable to help their parents navigate the maze of paperwork and regulations. To make matters worse, seniors are not only locked into the first plan they choose, they face a financial penalty for delaying that choice. Every day, my office receives hundreds of calls from nervous, confused and worried seniors. And they have every right to be concerned: Their options are incredibly confusing, and the government is burdening them with unnecessary pressure on their time and finances. Even the seniors lucky enough to make sense of this new plan now understand that this prescription benefit was falsely advertised. They realize this law, despite all the promises, uses a series of holes in coverage and complex rules to provide shockingly skimpy benefits. Now that we're seeing the results, our worst fears have been confirmed: wide gaps in coverage, seniors being forced into HMO-style plans, and no price controls. Eventually, elements of this law may even lead to the privatization of Medicare. Our seniors deserve better than this, and it's going to take more than the competent administering President Bush's program now lacks. The time has come to renew our efforts, go back to the drawing board and give our seniors a real prescription-drug benefit. But if Republicans in Congress are unwilling to start over, we must at least perform some major surgery on the current law. To begin, we must: * Simplify the rules, streamline choices, require more transparency and extend deadlines for making decisions about coverage options. * Make the benefit comprehensive, and end the outrage of charging seniors premiums even after their benefits shut down. * Restrain double-digit drug-price increases and lower out-of-pocket costs for seniors by allowing the federal government to use its bulk purchasing power to negotiate volume discounts on behalf of all beneficiaries. * Allow for the safe reimportation of affordable prescription drugs from Canada and other industrialized countries. * Improve the protections for retiree benefits. Millions of seniors are projected to lose their gold-plated retiree prescription-drug plans and be forced into a lesser benefit under the Medicare plan. This is wrong, and we must prevent it from happening. * Cancel the unprecedented $12 billion slush fund to entice private insurance companies to participate in Medicare. If private companies are unwilling to engage in fair competition for customers, the federal government should stand ready to offer a plan as a part of its Medicare package. The $12 billion is better used investing in an expanded benefit for seniors than in a massive corporate handout. Affordable healthcare is not a privilege for the elected, the connected and the wealthy; it should be a right afforded to all Americans, regardless of their background or social standing. President Bush's prescription-drug program soundly rejects this principle, and we have to pass serious reforms now to repair this program before it becomes entrenched. Our goal should be nothing more and nothing less than assuring that a Medicare prescription-drug plan actually does what it's supposed to do: conveniently provide affordable prescription drugs to all seniors. Kerry is a member of the Commerce and Finance committees.