Under current law, people on Medicare have until May 15 to join a drug plan. If they are eligible for Medicare Part A or B and join a drug plan after that deadline, they will probably pay a penalty. The punishment is a 1 percent increase in premium for each month after May that they were eligible for the plan and did not join.

A late enrollee continues to pay that higher premium for the life of the plan.

Congress created this deadline, and the coercion that goes with it, to force retirees to choose a plan and sign up. If doing so were a simple clerical matter, that would be one thing. But it's not.

Medicare Part D, as the drug plan is known, makes the tax code look simple. There are cost comparisons to make, often for every different prescription drug a patient is taking. There are drug formularies to figure out, which are divided into price tiers. There are premiums, co-pays and co-insurance to add up.

Even if you can master all this, and can plug the information into a program on Medicare's Web site, you still may need to call two or three different insurers, and your doctor, to ask specific questions.

At least if you've got a tax question, there are experienced accountants and tax experts to advise you. True, there are people at Medicare and other agencies who advise people about Medicare D, but because it is something new, that makes it more daunting for seniors.

Frankly, many seniors who are mentally infirm and do not have friends or family to help them are in a tough spot. No deadline extension is likely to help them.

But several public agencies have mounted heroic campaigns to get up to speed on this program and provide expert advice. They are the ones who need more time to help the people who ask.

Forty-eight U.S. senators have signed a letter calling on the Republican leadership to extend the deadline without penalty. We think other members of Congress, including Utah's delegation, should give that ball a push.