The Doughnut Hole in Obamacare is much like his promises for everything else coming from his silver tongue  – sweet on the outside and empty in the middle.

I received a letter today from AARP, and United Healthcare, who carries the insurance for Rx drugs for participants of Medicare Part D, that told me in the month of September, I was in the Doughnut Hole.  Oh, they called it a ‘gap’ and that now I would have to pay 100% of my prescription costs.

I said to myself, now wait a minute – Obama told me the Doughnut Hole was gone when Obamacare was passed in 2010.

Some background: when beneficiaries enter prescription costs hit’s $2,830 including both their share and the amounts paid by insurance you are in what is called the gap – yes that’s the Doughnut hole, you are responsible for 100% of the cost and must spend $3,610 of your money before qualifying for catastrophic coverage, which might pay for 95% of the cost.

Now I have spent 19 years in a major international pharmaceutical company heading up their public relations operation. I spent some 25 more years as a consultant to that industry, for a variety of issues including crisis management on an international level.  For the most part this is a good industry.

I learned a lot about drugs and applied that knowledge to myself, family and friends when they asked.

My doctors, whomever they might be where ever I lived, don’t treat me as the normal patient, because they quickly grasp my knowledge of medication and medicine.

I thought it might be important to give you this background to get back to the Doughnut Hole.

You see on the basis of the medication I take I am in the hole, that Obama told me I wouldn’t be in.

Perhaps because of the knowledge I gained and the medication I took, I am here today.  I  don’t have any disputes with the pharmaceutical industry on the basis of my intimate knowledge, but I will be honest about them in my reporting.

So as a journalist in my days before the pharmaceutical industry and consulting, I put on my investigative reporter’s hat on and made some calls to find out what’s going on.

First call, to AARP’s insurance carrier, United Healthcare.

Went through the usual garbage that we all go through before we can talk to a human that doesn’t have an electronic voice from Mars.

And he said how may I help you.  I said my question is simple.  I thought when Obamacare passed the Doughnut Hole was eliminated.

He immediately said no, “I don’t think that takes place until 2011.”

I told him that was not my understanding.

He put me on hold to check with colleagues, he came back to tell me that the gap coverage and additional coverage doesn’t take place until 2011 and the Doughnut Hole still exists, and said it will exit in 2011 with additional assistance during the coverage gap.

I couldn’t even get accurate information from my carrier, because on July 8, 2010 a press release was issued by Kathleen Sebelius that 300,000 eligible seniors who have entered the Medicare Part D “Doughnut Hole” this year have been mailed their tax-free, one time rebate check for $250, from the US Department of Health and Human Services.

What the hell is that?

Now we went further as we do on this site, and found out the truth from the slippery, silver tongue of Obama.

The Heritage Foundation reports that the doughnut hole was a bad policy to begin with, much like Obamacare in total.

Well, isn’t this comforting for seniors?

You see the plan calls for starting to fill the hole through a 50% discount on brand name medication – something pharmaceutical manufacturers will be expected to provide for senior citizens in the coverage gap.

This half off discount is somehow supposed to come out of the pharmaceutical companies.  However, the government does not control the underlying price; which leaves that to the market.

Therefore a bottle of drugs worth $50 could go to $100 and then offer a $50 discount – and the senior citizen is still in the hole of Obama’s sweetness of the Doughnut’s outer edge but not the hole.