“Stability of Mentally Ill Shaken by Medicare Drug Plan Problems,” by Susan Levine in today’s Washington Post, is about how some D.C.-area neurotics are having a hard time adapting to the new government-subsidized prescription drug plan. Once you get over the shock of learning that the mentally unstable cannot effortlessly assimilate the codicils of the Medicare Prescription Drug Improvement and Modernization Act, you might find yourself wondering the same thing I did: How did these patients obtain their drugs before the government started paying for them?

The article reports that the implementation of the Medicare act has interrupted the supply of drugs to mental patients, which implies an uninterrupted supply prior to the government’s intervention. Is that the case? The article doesn’t say. By focusing on administrative problems, Levine leaves us unable to determine whether these patients are faring better or worse now that Medicare is picking up the tab for their meds. That’s an important question, because we know which end the taxpayer is on. So if prescription-drug consumers are also getting screwed by this program, who exactly is benefiting?