Medicare Part D a boon for drug companies, House report says

[DogPoundPup]

<snip>
The House Committee on Oversight and Government Reform found that taxpayers are paying up to 30% more for prescription drugs under Medicare's privatized Part D program for seniors and the disabled than under the government's Medicaid program for the poor.

"Medicare Part D has given the major drug companies a taxpayer-funded windfall worth billions of dollars," said committee Chairman Henry A. Waxman (D-Beverly Hills).

Waxman said he would introduce legislation to guarantee that federal taxpayers would not be charged higher prices under Medicare Part D than under Medicaid.

"This is an enormous giveaway. And it has absolutely no justification," he said.

Under Medicaid, drug companies have to sell prescription drugs to the government at discounted prices. When Medicare Part D was enacted in January 2006, drug companies were no longer obliged to cut rates for their products.

In the two years Medicare Part D has been in effect, drug manufacturers have taken in $3.7 billion more than they would have through prices under the Medicaid program, committee investigators found.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/nation/la-na-medicare25-2008jul25,0,5164857.story

[baldguy]

1. No shit!

[indepat]

2. Surely that's not true for only a fuckin' venal, corrupt, and mendacious Congress would pass

bills allowing senior citizens to be fleeced out of $3.7 billion dollars in such a short period of time, for that would be enough for all able-bodied seniors who can get to D.C. to assemble in mass and hang the whole lot of them in effigy. :P

[jwirr]

3. Anyone who thinks privatization is about saving money needs their

head examined.

[SammyWinstonJack]

4. SHOCKED! SHOCKED I AM!

:evilgrin: