Washington ? Joseph Williams is skeptical about enrolling in another Medicare HMO, even if it means the government would pick up a good part of his prescription costs.

At 72, Williams returned to Medicare’s traditional fee-for-service program last month after bouncing around among five different health maintenance organizations in recent years.

His experience is an example why even President Bush’s allies in Congress have shown no enthusiasm for his proposal to condition prescription drug benefits on older people joining HMOs or other private insurance plans.

“If they’d only treat you like people and not a number in a computer…,” Williams said from his home in Massapequa, N.Y.. “The doctors were good. It’s the plans. They don’t know what they’re doing.”

In his State of the Union address last month, Bush broached the idea of giving Medicare recipients an option for getting government help with their pharmacy bills, saying “seniors should have the choice of a health care plan that provides prescription drugs.”

Immediately afterward, Senate Finance Committee Chairman Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, said he refuses to “draw lines on drug coverage.” Sen. Olympia Snow, R-Maine, accused Bush of “hampering” efforts by her and other lawmakers to get those benefits for all older people. Senior House Republicans expressed only befuddlement.

Since then, administration officials have been loath to provide any details.

Joseph Williams and his wife, Mary, sit in their home in Massapequa, N.Y., behind a row of their prescription drugs. Williams, 72, said he is skeptical about enrolling in a Medicare HMO again because he's already participated in five HMOs.

Lawmakers in both parties remain anxious to pass a Medicare prescription drug benefit, particularly before next year’s elections. Last year, the House passed a $350 billion, 10-year plan that, like Bush’s, relied heavily on private insurers — a concept that Democrats vehemently oppose. It died in the Senate.

Older people initially signed up for Medicare’s HMO program when it began in 1999 because many of the plans offered enhanced benefits like drug, dental and hearing coverage not provided by traditional Medicare.

But in the time since, many managed care plans have fled areas and abandoned beneficiaries, complaining they are not getting enough money amid rising health care costs. Just this year, 33 health plans withdrew from the program or reduced their service, dropping coverage for nearly 200,000 people.

Between 1999 and 2001, nearly half the HMOs participating in the program withdrew or scaled back their services, affecting some 1.6 million Medicare recipients, according to a study last year by Mathematica Policy Research, Inc.

About 5 million of Medicare’s 40 million beneficiaries are still enrolled in the HMO program.