Replacing Medicare's Bad Medicine
REPLACING MEDICARE'S BAD MEDICINE
a Column by Congresswoman Eleanor Holmes Norton
February 3, 2006
Even before the new Medicare prescription drug program for seniors and disabled people began, Democrats argued that it needed a new prescription of its own. No disappointment was more bitter than the program's start-up on January 1st, when it fell flat on its face, leaving many seniors without their medicines. Half the states and the District of Columbia used local taxpayer funds to rescue this federal program. It adds insult to injury that the states now are told they must go after the insurance plans like bill collectors, adding to costs imposed by the federal government's fiasco. Uncle Sam will pay only if the states can't collect.
Government Reform Committee Democrats invited seniors, pharmacists and state officials to testify about the problem at a hearing-type forum the first day of the session. The problems were wholesale, but they were centered among the most vulnerable-the 6.2 million low and modest income seniors or disabled who had been receiving their drugs through Medicaid. They had been told they would be automatically registered.
Yet the new program does not even reduce the high cost of drugs. Several studies confirm that prices will be 20 to 30 percent higher than prices the government previously paid for the same drugs under the Medicaid program. Industry analysts acknowledge the windfall was created because the legislation stops the government from negotiating the best price, as larger purchasers always do. The Department of Veterans Affairs can negotiate a bulk discount and buys brand name drugs for 84% lower than under the new Medicare program.
In creating this complicated program, the administration rewarded the pharmaceutical companies, not seniors. Seniors don't have a plan run by the government like their Medicare health care. The government's largess is spread to dozens of companies. Alaska, with the fewest, has 27 plans. Pennsylvania and West Virginia have 52. My city, the District of Columbia, has 48.
Democrats are pushing hard to make the new program bearable. H.R. 752 requires a national Medicare plan and negotiation for lower prices. H.R. 3861 tackles the initial confusion by extending the deadline to enroll and waiving late enrollment fees for 2006.
http://www.norton.house.gov/issues2.cfm?id=11595