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NewsWorld NewsBusinessSportsEntertainmentHealthTech / ScienceWeatherTravelBlogs Etc.Local NewsNewsweekMultimediaMost PopularNBC NEWSMSNBC TVToday ShowNightly NewsMeet the PressDateline NBC  MSNBC Home » Health » AgingMedicare patients confronting drug restrictionsInsurers limiting access, quantity of prescriptions for chronically ill seniorsWASHINGTON - Thousands of elderly patients are learning the hard way that it isn't enough to check whether their medicines are covered under a new Medicare drug plan they have chosen.Insurers are using a broad range of tools to get customers to take the cheaper drugs they want them to take, and failure to follow their instructions can be costly.In many cases, a patient's doctor has to get prior approval for a drug before the plan will cover it.

In others, the plan will limit the quantity of a drug the patient can get.Plans also divide drugs into tiers.

The lowest level requires only nominal out-of-pocket costs, while the highest - called specialty tiers - require the customer to pay for a quarter, a third or even more of the costs.The tools are not unique to Medicare.

The Veterans Affairs Department uses them, and almost all workplace drug plans - including the healt...

...ba href=/drug abuse/a/b, rarely translate into football anthems.

'World in Motion', which was recently voted the best World Cup song in a poll conducted by Littlewoods Pools, is one of few exceptions that prove the rule.

Despite the John Barnes rap, the song improbably achieved chart success while maintaining street cred.

But New Order's classic track was more a luvved-up dancefloor hit rather than a singalong terrace anthem.

'Three Lions' is the only England song that was chanted on the terraces while managing to stay on the right side of naff.

But, while the 'football's coming home' chorus might have caught on amongst football fans, the lyrics themselves were far from uplifting.

Gone was the swaggering self-confidence of 'This Time', which spoke of 'marching on towards victory'.

Instead here was a song about perennial failure.

'Three Lions' succeeded because the countercultural themes of personal failure and self-hatred had converged with our diminished national sporting self-image - the imperial myth of British sporting invincibility having given way to 'thirty years of hurt'.

So, maybe those counter-cultural themes of self-destruction and failure aren't so out of place in a modern football anthem after all.

Instead of an upbeat happy-clappy footstomper brimful of vacuous platitudes about strength, courage, and desire, perhaps what we need is another miserablist aria that celebrates our very British tradition of heroic failure.

'So many jokes, so many sneers, but all those oh-so-nears ...

... Sister city invites local entertainers SEARCH Pick Newspaper Advance Newspapers Ann Arbor News Bay City Times Flint Journal Grand Rapids Press Jackson Citizen Patriot Kalamazoo Gazette Lansing Bureau Muskegon Chronicle Saginaw News FIND A BUSINESS More From The Grand Rapids Press | Subscribe To The Grand Rapids Press Sister city invites local entertainers Thursday, March 30, 2006The Grand Rapids Press Sister city invites local entertainers HOLLAND - In honor of a decade-long sister city relationship with Holland, the city of Santiago de Queretaro is inviting a local delegation to visit the Mexican city during its 475th anniversary celebration.

Queretaro has asked that a musical, artistic or cultural group of four to 10 people be part of the delegation.

The International Relations Commission is seeking nominations of groups from Holland who are interested in representing their community at the "Festival of Queretaro" on July 23-27.

Expenses for meals, housing and local ground transportation will provided by Queretaro.

Air travel is the responsibility of the selected group.

Those interested should send a letter to the IRC by April 10.

For more information, call 355-1328.

Robot makes semifinals HOLLAND - The Holland High School F.I.R.S.T.

(For Inspiration and Recognition of Science and Technology) robotics team sponsored by Haworth Inc.

and Magna Donnelly were not eliminated until the semifinal round of a regional tournament held in Chicago earlier this month.

Thirty...