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By U.S. Congressman John W. Olver (Dem.).
The Medicare prescription drug bill recently passed by Congress is a flawed policy that favors special interests over seniors. It was designed to dismantle Medicare piece by piece while doing nothing to reduce the skyrocketing costs of prescription drugs. It should be replaced with a prescription drug benefit within the Medicare program that is affordable and available to all seniors. That’s why I join my Democratic colleagues in fighting to repeal the billions of dollars in new subsidies for HMOs, give the government the ability to negotiate for lower drug prices and close gaps in coverage.
In the face of steadily increasing premiums and rising costs of prescription drugs, Americans struggle to find and keep affordable health care. One-third of Medicare beneficiaries have no drug coverage at all, and 20 percent have coverage for only part of the year. These seniors and disabled Americans spend thousands of dollars on prescription drugs each year. Over the past three years, their total spending on prescription drugs increased by almost 50 percent.
In pushing for the current Medicare plan, the Bush Administration misled seniors by claiming to make prescription drugs more affordable, when in reality the bill was designed to provide handouts to drug companies, HMOs and insurance companies. Drug companies stand to reap almost $139 billion in windfall profits, while HMOs and insurance companies won a $46 billion slush fund to subsidize the Republican plan to privatize Medicare.
The Republican plan
also prohibits Medicare from negotiating with drug companies for bulk
discounts. A bill I am co-sponsoring (H.R. 3707) will fix that problem by giving
Medicare the authority to negotiate fair drug discounts for seniors. Medicare
should be able to use its clout to negotiate with drug companies for lower
prices for the country’s 40 million Medicare beneficiaries, just like large
employers and the departments of Veterans Affairs and Defense have been allowed
to do.
Another fatal flaw of the current
Medicare plan is that it pushes seniors into HMOs by forcing
traditional Medicare to compete with private plans – despite the fact that huge
government subsidies tilt the playing field to HMOs. This plan doesn’t create
good choices or guaranteed benefits for our seniors. Instead it leaves seniors
and the disabled at the mercy of HMOs that can charge higher premiums and offer
fewer benefits. Also, out of pocket costs are too high, and the bill
provides no coverage for bills between $2,200 and $5,000 – a huge gap that will
hurt millions of middle class seniors when they need help most.
To top it off, the Administration recently revealed that their plan will cost at least $134 billion more than originally estimated, indebting our children for generations to come while providing little or no benefit to our seniors.
Democrats want to replace this special interest legislation with a prescription drug benefit within the Medicare program that is affordable, meaningful and available to all seniors and disabled Americans. We need to pass a plan with reasonable premiums and deductibles to keep costs down, a plan with defined, guaranteed benefits without gaps or gimmicks, a plan within the Medicare system – not a separate privatized plan that lets HMOs make all the decisions about costs and benefits. And we need a plan that is available to all seniors and disabled Americans on Medicare no matter where they live – rural or urban – or what their incomes are.