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Statement from AFL-CIO Pres. John Sweeney on Senate Failure to Pass Medicare Fair Prescription Drug Price Act April 18, 2007
We are extremely disappointed that a minority of Senators has blocked legislation that could have allowed Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices to achieve substantial savings for seniors and for the working families whose taxes support this vital program. Instead, Big Pharma won the day. The nonsensical policy of barring such negotiations - a policy requested by the drugmakers when the Medicare prescription drug bill was enacted - remains the law of the land.
The Department of Veterans Affairs and state Medicaid programs use their buying power to negotiate more affordable drugs than those available to many Medicare beneficiaries. If the Department of Health and Human Services were allowed to put the purchasing power of tens of millions of Medicare beneficiaries behind negotiations with drug makers, it would undoubtedly result in lower prices for their products.
The savings could be used to improve the prescription drug benefit and strengthen Medicare's fiscal health, while lowering costs and helping to keep more from falling into the benefits doughnut hole.
It's clear that this is another example of how health care hustlers like Big Pharma are gaming the legislative system and blocking meaningful reform of our broken health care system.
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This fight is not over. American seniors will continue to fight for fairness,
and we will prevail -- Webmaster Gene Lantz
Texas Alliance for Retired Americans (TARA) Vice-President Shane Fox urges all Texas retirees to contact Senators Cornyn and Hutchinson to get them to vote for reforms of the prescription drug bill known as Medicare Part D. A vote is expected around April 18-19.
Under the 2003 prescription drug law, Medicare is banned from negotiating volume purchase discounts. The big drug companies are spending millions to keep this sweetheart deal intact.
Shane Fox reports, "The Senate Finance committee voted out a bill (SB3), which would:
1. Repeal that language which forbids Medicare negotiating for lower prices.
2. Allow Medicare to audit the various drug plans.
3. Require a study of the effective of the various drugs offered by the all
the various drug plans.
This bill is not as strong as the House version (HR4), which requires Medicare to negotiate for lower prices. Our goal right now is to get the Senate bill voted and into a House/Senate conference. But, the Senate Republicans have a two-point strategy to keep that from happening. First they plan to filibuster and we need to have the votes to close debate. Nationally, there are GOP Senators that can be moved and the Alliance is working to that end. We need to join that effort. Secondly the GOP is attempting to turn veterans against other seniors by claiming that Medicare's negotiating prices would cause the Veteran's Administration to pay higher prices. Our friends in the American Legion are joining the GOP on this."
Full information is at www.retiredamericans.org.
Please spread the word and contact your senators. You can contact all your national
and state representatives from the front page of www.labordallas.org
--Gene Lantz, TARA Communications Director