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The following is from Families USA - a health advocacy organization. Their website is also very informative on health care and policy issues --------- Forwarded message ---------- From: "Families USA" <[log in to unmask]> To: [log in to unmask] Date: Mon, 24 Jun 2002 14:05:50 -0400 Subject: Medicare Rx Drug Bill Update ---------------------------------------- Families USA's Health Action Network ---------------------------------------- Friends, Several Medicare prescription drug bills have been introduced in recent weeks. We're not going to bombard you with all the details, but we will try to summarize what has happened. You can also visit our home page at (www.familiesusa.org) to see some of our analyses and comments on the House and Senate bills. Both parties view a Medicare prescription drug benefit as a decisive issue in the November elections. Traditionally, Democrats have had the advantage on health issues; that is, swing voters would be more likely think that Democrats would do a better job of representing their (voters') views on health care. Therefore, one of the Republican goals for the election is negating this advantage. A key element of the Republican strategy has been to come out early for a prescription drug benefit for seniors. Since they control the House of Representatives, they wanted to move quickly to get a bill drafted, introduced, and passed. They aimed to wrap things up before Memorial Day, but they were delayed by internal wrangling. Last week, the House Republicans finally introduced their bill (H.R. 4954). (You can find our analysis of the bill at http://www.familiesusa.org/thehouserepublican.htm ). They have tried to make their plan attractive to seniors, but it's not likely that seniors will be receptive, for several reasons: the benefits are not as extensive as most seniors want, the plan relies on private insurance policies instead of Medicare, and it's weak on lowering drug prices. This bill, which costs $350 billion over 10 years, has a benefit with a $420 annual premium. After a senior pays for the first $250 worth of drugs (to satisfy the deductible), they would pay 20 percent of drug costs (the program would pay the remaining 80 percent) up to $1,000. For the next $1,000 in drug costs, seniors would be responsible for paying 50 percent. Then they'd need to pay all of their drug costs until they spent $3,800 out of pocket (excluding the premium). At that point, their insurance plan would pick up all additional drug costs, including the premium. The bill that House Democrats announced, which would cost between $750 billion and $800 billion over 10 years, provides a very generous drug benefit as part of Medicare coverage. Seniors would pay a $25 monthly premium and a $100 annual deductible. Medicare would cover 80 percent of drug costs (beneficiaries would pay 20 percent) up to a $2,000 out-of-pocket cap. After that, Medicare would pick up all drug costs. The bill also contains some cost-containment measures designed to eliminate pharmaceutical companies' abuses of the drug approval process that prevent generic drugs from coming to market. The House is poised to pass its legislation before the July 4th recess. A floor vote is expected to take place this Wednesday or Thursday. The Republican bill will be introduced as the "base bill" - the language that legislators will work from - but the Democrats will try to substitute their bill for the Republican bill. The Democratic effort probably won't be successful. In the meantime, Senate Democrats have announced their own legislation. Their bill, S. 2625, falls somewhere between the two House bills in terms of the generosity of its benefit. Under the bill, which costs $500 billion over six years, beneficiaries would pay a $25 monthly premium but no deductible. The bill provides an incentive for using generics by requiring a $10 copay for generic drugs and a $40 copay for brand-name drugs. Once a beneficiary had paid $4,000 towards drug costs, the Medicare program would pay for any expenses above that cap. Most observers doubt that legislation will be enacted in this election year, in part because the parties are very far apart on what a drug benefit should look like. Also, without a congressional budget, you need to have 60 votes in the Senate to pass anything, which is nearly impossible. Our job in this election season will be to mobilize our resources to get out the truth about the drug debate. How much would people benefit from these bills? Do they truly lower drug prices? After that, our job will be to hold members' feet to the fire so they actually do pass legislation that gives Medicare consumers meaningful access to prescription drugs. We'll try to help you follow the ongoing debate through our Health Action Network and our Web site. -------------------------------------------------- Unsubscribing: We hope you find this information interesting and useful. If you are not interested in getting periodic memos like this, you can unsubscribe to the list by sending an e-mail message from your e-mail account to ([log in to unmask] ) with the word "unsubscribe" in the subject line. Subscribing: If this e-mail notice was forwarded to you and you are not already a subscriber, you can sign up to receive regular e-mail updates at (http://capwiz.com/familiesusa/mlm/ ). Questions or comments should be sent to Ingrid VanTuinen at ([log in to unmask] ). ---------------------------------------------------------------------- To sign-off Parkinsn send a message to: mailto:[log in to unmask] In the body of the message put: signoff parkinsn