Al Simmons

Times Columnist

Congress recently passed a bill that is being touted as providing a drug plan to the current medicare coverage that seniors already have. Both sides of the aisle have been promising for years to do something about drug coverage for seniors in the USA. This bill just passed is crammed full of everything under the sun. It is an attempt to reform Medicare. This may be needed but this ought to be a separate bill not lumped together with drugs for our seniors. This kind of thing kills the health reform attempted by the Clintons. One explanation is to make the entitlement portion of the drug bill so expensive that Congress will be forced to kill the whole Medicare program.

The need for help in the purchase of drugs has been a reality for years. The cost of drugs as a percentage of total healthcare spending doubled from 1980 to 2000. For seniors, the cost has more than doubled during that time frame. The mediation desperately need by seniors is far more expensive that medication for other age populations.

One big winner in this bill is the pharmaceutical industry. The Reform Bill will pump $400 billion over a 10 year period into the purchase of prescription drugs. This is only the tip of the iceberg. It will be in the trillions of dollars is 20 years. However, you know we cannot afford this cost. This means we must destroy the program. The bill does nothing to encourage the pharmaceutical industry to control the rapidly increasing price of the much needed for seniors. Instead of providing a level playing field for the private sector, this bill gives the drug providers a 30% to 40% advantage over Medicare. Medicare is not allowed to bargain with drug providers for better prices. The Veterans Administration can do this. State sponsored health insurance programs can do this. Why can't medicare bargain to get better prices for the drugs that seniors desperately need? One answer is to hasten the demise of government caring for its seniors. This bill prohibits any patient from ordering drugs from out of the USA. Canada will no longer be an option for desperate seniors.

The industry claims they must recover their research investment. This argument is bogus if not downright fraudulent. The fact is they spend over twice as much for advertisement than they do for research. This bill just passed is cooperate welfare in the extreme. It is political payback for an industry's investments in the last political campaign.

Point of fact. $22 million of the pharmaceutical industry's money was given to the 2002 political campaign.. The recipients of 80% of these contributions were Republicans.

The insurance industry also contributed very heavily to the last election and most of their money went to Republicans. Therefore, we are not surprised that the insurance industry is set to make a lot of money in the new arrangement for providing drugs for seniors. The Reform Bill is a huge giveaway program for campaign contributors.

The fact that the AARP leaders supported this Reform Bill puzzled me. I asked. The answer

was reasonable. In the coming election year, this congress was the very best chance the seniors

had for any kind of drug coverage in the foreseeable future.

I was set to accept this explanation until I read that 25% of the income of the AARP came

from the sell of their insurance plans. If this bill is good for the insurance industry and the AARP

is a part of that industry it makes it hard to believe the AARP acted solely in their members behalf.