As an elder citizen of Massachusetts, I am feeling sandbagged. As a columnist, I am feeling seduced.

Just three weeks ago, I wrote about the commonwealth’s new Prescription Advantage program, welcoming the benefits it would bring to this state’s older residents. I passed on to readers information sent out by the Executive Office of Elder Affairs in praise of its affordability, among other features. It was billed as an instrument that would bring to every elder “peace of mind.”

I also took at face value Secretary Lillian Glickman’s boast about the influence that Prescription Advantage would have across the country and her prediction that “the eyes of the nation will be upon us.”

But now, thanks to some sharp reporting by David Ortiz who writes for the Boston and Cambridge TABs and the Cambridge Chronicle, we discover that the state government has misled us. The shiny promise of the new drug program has been compromised and may turn out to be just another spoiled package.

We have now learned  that the state House of Representatives wants to cut 22 percent of the program’s budget. That cut will eliminate premium protection for elders with low incomes, raise co-payments, and double deductible limits each year.

Suddenly, the House proposes making worse some features of the program that were already dubious. No wonder that some critics have already renamed the program Prescription Disadvantage.

When I talked three weeks ago to John O'Neill, Executive Director of Somerville Cambridge Elder Services and current president of Massachusetts Home Care, I discovered that he already felt mixed about the new Prescription Advantage program, even before these funding cuts came over the horizon.

“It’s good that it’s a public plan,” he said then, and he thought it would prove helpful for low-income people. But, even then, it had too many deductibles and co-payments for his taste.

He recognized that determining the amount to be paid in premiums was a problem for the program’s planners. “The premiums are a shot in the dark,” he added, “because no one knows how much the whole program will cost.”  

“They are afraid of adverse selection,” he said of the planners, because so many people who are big users of prescription drugs may sign up. And the plan depends on state funding from year to year.

These were the incisive but balanced views of an informed critic commenting on a plan adopted last July and about to be the subject of an intensive media campaign this month.

Now, given the announced cuts, many elders must wonder about what the new program really offers them, since it comes loaded down with so many co-payments and deductibles, just like run-of-the-mill health care programs.

Fortunately, some elder citizens have already taken action in the face of the proposed cuts. Busloads of them went to the State House last week to lobby members of the legislature and persuade them to restore the original features of the plan. These advocates, many of them experienced and vocal campaigners on elder issues, hope to turn their representatives around.

I talked to my own representative, Jarrett Barrios, who said of the proposed cuts, “This is obviously something I am concerned about.” I await further word from him when he checks with Ways and Means about the prospects of restoring the funding.

Back to John O’Neill, I asked how he now feels about the new plight of Pharmacy Advantage.  The 22 percent cut, to his mind, jeopardizes the whole program “before the thing even gets off the ground.” In large part, that happens because the cuts “make it easier for many older people to say no.”

As to the effect of the cuts on overall costs of the program, the state has put itself in a strange position. “Instead of helping,” O’Neill observes, “it may perversely make it worse.” That’s because fewer, perhaps many fewer, will now register for a program that may cost them so much more.

A leader among citizen advocates, Phil Mamber of Lynn, agrees. Current president of the Massachusetts Senior Action Council, Mamber last week led some 200 elders at the State House protesting the cuts and pushing for amendments that would restore the program.

Asked about the 22 percent cut, Mamber says: “I think it was absolutely horrible. It took us by surprise. Now people don’t know what to register for.  It’s a terrible way to do business. Everyone is confused.”

Eileen Ginnetty, director of the Council on Aging in Cambridge, agrees. “It is discouraging,” she says of the situation. “If you are going to pay $4,000 a year, that’s what you pay for Medex Gold.” That removes any incentive for moderate-income elders to sign up for the new program, she believes.

As this column goes to press, no action has been taken to restore the money needed for  Prescription Advantage.

It will be fascinating to see how the state government gets out of this mess. More important, the health care needs of many elders hang on the outcome.

Richard Griffin