This evening the Senate will vote on a proposal by Senators
Olympia Snowe and Ron Wyden to replace the new Medicare drug
benefit's competitive pricing model with a single payer drug system
controlled by the government. Senator Wyden likes to compare his
proposal to Costco getting a good deal for consumers on toilet
paper.
Except that Wyden actually opposed his own proposal seven years
ago when President Clinton introduced a Medicare drug benefit that
barred the government from setting or negotiating prices for nearly
half the prescription drug market. My new partner in crime at the
Center for Medicine in the Public Interest Peter Pitts blogged on
this at drugwonks.com:
Here's what Senator Ron Wyden (D, OR) had to say about
the federal government negotiating prescription drug costs on
October 28, 1999:
"What troubles me about plans to deal with prescription drug
costs that involve price controls, we will have massive
cost-shifting. If we have Medicare acting as the buyer for all the
medicine, it may be possible for the Government to negotiate a
discount. I have always said that might be possible. What troubles
me about that approach is we will have the cost passed on to
someone else who might be 26 or 27 -- maybe a divorced mom who has
a couple of kids -- working as hard as they can, and all of a
sudden they find out their prescription drug bill shoots up because
Congress adopted an approach in this area that doesn't use
marketplace forces."
And then he added for good measure …
"There is a right way and a wrong way to deal with the issue of
affordable medication. The wrong way is to create a
one-size-fits-all Federal regime and put the Government in the
business of trying to orchestrate this entire program."
And here's what he just said, on March 13, 2006:
"At a time when the costs of this program and the costs of
Government have gone through the stratosphere, one would think the
Government would be doing everything possible to hold down costs.
Yet, unfortunately, in the original prescription drug legislation,
a bizarre restriction was put in place that literally bars the
Government from being a smart shopper.
"I compare the Government's approach to buying prescription
drugs under Medicare to somebody going into Costco and buying
toilet paper one roll at a time."
Wyden was right the first time. And the problem with the Costco
comparison of course is that Costco does not control 60 percent of
the toilet paper market -- as the government would if the
Snowe-Wyden proposal goes through -- and therefore does not, as a
matter of course tell people to use the Kirkland (that's the Costco
house brand for you outsiders) before stepping up to the Charmin'
two-ply plush. And by the way, if you don't like Costco's limited
selection of items for each type of good, you can go to Wal-Mart or
Target or Kohl's or any number of department stores, etc. Don't
like the drug you get under a single payer proposal the Wyden hated
and now loves? Either pay out of pocket or die.
Which leads me to wonder what supposedly free market Republicans
are thinking when they even consider supporting a measure that
would make the government the largest purchaser of medicine in the
universe. An AP story this week describes a memo describing how an
organization called Americans United intends to use "polling,
television advertisements, public events and more, hoping to serve
as a sort of bearer of unwelcome news about the (Medicare)
program."
According to the AP story, "...The objectives of the Americans
United program, according to the memo, include: Drive down support
... to minuscule levels. Mobilize a popular insurrection ... that
demands real change and threatens to exact a price on members of
Congress who resist" fixing the program." Fixing the program, by
the way, boils down to creating the sort of single payer system
that Olympia Snowe proposes and some conservative Republicans,
including those who might run for President, might vote for.
The kicker is that the "...organization draws heavy financial
support from organized labor, and Senate Democratic leader Harry
Reid of Nevada and House Democratic leader Nancy Pelosi of
California have both met with prospective donors to demonstrate
their personal interest in the group's efforts."
In other words, Republicans -- including those who would be the
party's standard bearers -- are supporting a Medicare insurgency
funded by the extreme left of the Democrat party. Worse, they are
supporting the most massive centralization of government authority
in recent history. And in doing so they are robbing seniors of
necessary choices and the right of doctors to make important life
and death decisions on behalf of their patients.
topics:
Nancy Pelosi, Television, Business, NATO, Oil, Medicare
