For Ms. J, a resident of Macomb County, Mich., the prescription drug program is a nightmare. Now in her 70s, she and her husband live on Social Security and a small pension from his work. His company went belly up, so he lost his health care benefits. But with discount drug cards, they’ve been able to buy medicine for about $135 a month. Now under the new drug program, their discount cards won’t work and the deductible of the plans that cover their drugs costs $250 to $500. She’s worked with her pharmacy, gone to a special briefing at the local school, spent Christmas with her computer-literate daughter going through the alternatives. And in every one, she’ll end up paying more than she does now. “I’m between a rock and a hard place,” she said. “Something has to give.” At RainbowPush, we held a special briefing for ministers because churches are flooded with distraught seniors confounded by a program that doesn’t make sense.
The new, privatized prescription drug program is a mess. Hundreds of thousands of our most vulnerable citizens have found themselves cut off from prescriptions paid for by Medicaid and unable to obtain essential medicines. Millions of seniors –
including those of sound body and mind, and even those with advanced degrees – are stupefied by a blizzard of insurance company offerings that are difficult to evaluate.
Many, in the years ahead, are likely to find themselves cut off when the drugs they need change and aren’t covered by the plan they chose, or when the plan they chose decides it can profit more by dropping the drug they need. And perhaps worst of all, the sick who need the most costly drugs will find themselves in the “hole in the doughnut” – above the threshold where their drugs are covered and faced with staggering out-of-pocket costs. This from a program that will cost Americans more than $500 billion during the next 10 years.
Why is this program so bad? Our most vulnerable citizens are paying the costs of Washington corruption. This is a drug program written by and for the insurance and drug companies by compromised and compliant Bush political appointees and Republican legislators.
Hearing about the lavish lifestyle of Republican boss Tom DeLay or the cynical corruption of ex-Christian Coalition leader Ralph Reed (with his choirboy looks), many Americans dismiss congressional corruption as an insider’s game. Washington rot that goes on all the time.
But it is the vulnerable who pay the costs of corruption and the prescription drug program is a perfect example. Reformers called for the program to be set up under Medicare. That would have enabled Medicare to use its purchasing power to negotiate lower prices for drugs, the way that Australia and the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs do. A new study by the Center for Economic and Policy Research shows that the savings would be such that, under the current budget, all the drug needs of seniors could be covered, with some billions in savings sent back to lower the deficit.
But that is not the bill that Republican boss Tom DeLay forced through the Congress, holding the vote open for hours while he bullied reluctant colleagues into voting for it. (DeLay was rebuked by the bipartisan and normally inactive House Ethics Committee, chaired by a Republican, for essentially bribing one Republican to support the bill. The legislator said DeLay offered $100,000 in support for his son’s election campaign for a positive vote).
The bill shovels billions in subsidies to the insurance companies to encourage them to offer competing plans for seniors. And then actually prohibits Medicare from negotiating a better price for seniors. DeLay and his gang turned a benefit for seniors into a multi-billion dollar payoff to the insurance and drug lobbies.
Why did they do that? Money and corruption. Thomas Scully, Bush’s appointee to run Medicare, was a hospital industry lobbyist before taking office. While in office, Scully got a ‘waiver’ that allowed him to negotiate his future job – as a lobbyist for the drug companies – while still in office. So, not surprisingly, Scully misled the Congress about the cost of the bill and threatened to fire his chief actuary when he wanted to tell the Congress the truth about the cost projections.
And the Republican committee chair in charge of ushering the bill through was Rep. Billy Tauzin.
Once the bill passed, Tauzin retired to take a million-dollar salary as president of “Big Pharma” – the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America – the drug industry’s big-bucks lobby.
DeLay got massive drug and insurance company contributions to help consolidate the Republican hold on Congress and his hold on Republicans. Scully and Tauzin got lucrative jobs, a pretty direct payoff.
Seniors, the most vulnerable of Americans, are paying the price in confusion, catastrophic drug cutoffs and escalating drug prices. And American taxpayers pay for the costliest health system in the world, with the worst health results in the industrial world.
So, when people say the stench in Washington doesn’t matter, take another whiff. It is time to clean out those stables.