By Lawrence A. Hunter on 4.17.07 @ 12:08AM
The President has done his job. Now, it's up to the Senate.
Despite President Bush's promise to veto legislation giving
Medicare the power to "negotiate" drug prices, the House passed the
bill earlier this year by a vote of 255 to 170. Fortunately, with
only 24 Republicans in favor, the measure falls far short of the
290 votes required to override a presidential veto. Now it's time
for the Senate to step up to the mound and strike this bill
out.
If that means a filibuster, so be it. The last thing voters want
to see is a gang of Senate Republicans trying to have it both ways,
voting "yea" to placate liberals because they know the president is
waiting to pounce with a veto.
Time and again in the Republican-controlled Senate, the Democrat
minority exercised its prerogatives under Senate rules to prevent a
bill or judicial nominee from passing unless there were 60 votes.
Sure, it was frustrating for the slim Republican majority (55
members in the 109th Congress), but the Democrats used the Senate
precisely as the Founding Fathers intended: They prevented an
impassioned and small majority from running roughshod over a large
minority on issues of vital national importance.
Now, in the 110th Congress, the Democrats control the Senate by
an even narrower majority (51 to 49, with two Independents usually
voting with the Democrats). Still, they haven't let this razor-thin
majority dampen their newfound electoral hubris. The Republican
minority would be well within its rights to insist on 60 votes to
pass a measure that violates the conservative, free-market,
economic-growth principles that most of its members purport to
stand for.
This shouldn't be an uphill political battle for the
Republicans. The facts are on their side. Even the Congressional
Budget Office agrees that price controls via government price
negotiations will not lower prescription drug prices or save our
tax dollars. Three days before the bill passed the House, CBO
Acting Director Donald Marron told Rep. John Dingell (D-Mich.), one
of the bill's sponsors, that the Secretary of Health and Human
Services "would be unable to negotiate prices across the broad
range of covered Part D drugs that are more favorable than those
obtained by [the plans] under current law."
There is one catch: Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus
(D-Mont.) has watered down the House bill to entice the president
to sign price negotiations into law. Baucus supported the original
legislation establishing the Medicare Prescription Drug program,
including the prohibition on the federal government's negotiating
the price of drugs, so he's no fanatic on the issue. In the Finance
Committee markup, he simply removed the prohibition on government
price negotiations, thus stopping short of actually requiring them,
as the House bill does.
This empty gesture won't make the bill any less dangerous in the
long run. If the House bill were an unloaded gun, any Senate bill
that allows for price negotiations would be an unloaded gun with
the safety on. It makes little difference either way. In
legislative terms, it would be a simple matter to load the clip and
pull the trigger on America's seniors, so to speak. That's why the
filibuster is necessary.
The prospect of a Senate filibuster doesn't take our president
off the hook, either. He needs to make it clear promptly -- just as
he did with the House bill -- that even a watered-down Senate bill
will draw his veto. If the president goes veto-shy now, after being
so quick on the draw in the House, his opponents will be
emboldened, and America's seniors will suffer.
This bill is the first serious test for the Senate Republican
minority and the president in the face of the Democrats' new
agenda. If they fail, Medicare's bureaucrats will negotiate their
way into rationing drugs and stifling the development of
life-enhancing drugs.
All America's eyes are now on Senate Minority Leader Mitch
McConnell. Like a relief pitcher, he needs to put an end to this
ballgame. The president and stalwart House Republicans have already
given him two outs. Senator Baucus is stepping up to the plate.
Strike'm out, Mitch.
topics:
Law, Founding Fathers, NATO, Medicare
