Medicare Monstrosity!

[flpoljunkie]

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/articles/A54786-2003Nov17.html

By E. J. Dionne Jr
Tuesday, November 18, 2003; Page A25

They went in to design a prescription drug benefit for seniors and came out with an aardvark.
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"They've created a huge bias in favor of private plans," says Jeanne Lambrew, senior fellow at the Center for American Progress and a professor at George Washington University. "How can you call it choice or competition when private plans have such a large financial advantage?" And a bill that is supposed to expand drug coverage may cause at least 2 million seniors to lose their coverage from their former employers, Lambrew said.

What about containing Medicare costs? Market principles would tell you that with its huge pool of patients, Medicare could extract a good deal from the drug companies. But the bill prevents the Medicare system from doing that. "If you're serious about cost containment, you don't block Medicare from using its enormous purchasing power to bring drug prices down," says Robert Greenstein, executive director of the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities.

How do you know this bill is such a great deal for the drug companies and HMOs? On word of an agreement last week, share prices of drug stocks soared. Watch your television set for the millions of dollars in advertising the drug and managed-care industry groups will spend to praise this bill. Watch your wallet, too.

It will be said that to oppose this bill is to oppose a prescription drug benefit. That's nonsense. After sending this aardvark on its way, congressional negotiators could get serious about a simple, straightforward prescription drug benefit that was supposed to be the real purpose of this enterprise. And, yes, let's then have a national debate on the future of Medicare, out in the open and not in some congressional back room.

(We must contact our Senators and encourage them to filibuster this bad bill. No bill is better than this egregious giveway to the pharmaceutical and managed care companies, that is to say--Bush's cronies and major contributors).