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| Prescription Drugs For Seniors |
June 27, 2000 |
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| Dear Friends,
Last March, we passed a budget that set aside $40 billion over the next 5 years to add a prescription drug benefit for seniors to Medicare. This week we will vote on a bill to begin to make that benefit a reality.
When Medicare was created thirty-odd years ago, drugs were a very small part of the cost of medical care. But in the last decades research has brought us wonderful new drugs that let us live longer and healthier lives. Some of those drugs are really expensive.
No senior should be forced to choose between putting food on the table and buying the medicine they need. We must strengthen Medicare by providing prescription drug coverage for seniors.
There`s a lot of rhetoric about which plan floating around Washington is better and why. To tell you the truth, as each plan goes through another draft, the differences are narrowing. The bill that passes the House this week certainly won`t be the last word, but there are some general principals that I think are important.
The coverage should be voluntary. There are lots of seniors who have coverage through pensions or the VA and they are happy with it. They should not be forced to pay for coverage they won`t use.
It has to be available to all -- whether you are living in Manhattan or Mountainaire.
It has to be affordable for those with high drug costs as well as those with low incomes.
People who get their drugs through an insurance plan or HMO pay 8-30% less for those drugs than people with no insurance because the plan buys in bulk. That alone, is a benefit worth having.
There are some things that I think still need to be addressed in the bill and several amendments are going to be offered. In particular, America subsidizes low drug prices in the rest of the world and I think we can take some action to reduce the disparity. One idea is to allow the re-importation of drugs which is currently blocked by the FDA.
Another issue is advertisement of prescription drugs. The average senior sees 8 TV ads for prescription drugs every day. Now, with all those awful warnings about possible side effects at the end of each commercial, you might be saying, "Who in their right mind would want to try them!" But the advertising does work. People do ask their doctor. With a prescription drug, that worries me a little.
The bill we will vote on this week is a good start on the problem of providing prescription drug coverage for seniors.
Wish you were here,
Heather |
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