Washington, DC – Here is a statement from Ethan Rome, executive director of Health Care for America Now, on the bill to be filed by Senators Jay Rockefeller (D-WV), Tammy Baldwin (D-WI), Angus King (I-ME) and Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) to apply the same rebates to Medicare’s prescription drug program that state Medicaid programs get from the pharmaceutical industry:
“At a time when many Washington politicians are trying to stick seniors and families with higher health costs in order to cut tax bills for big corporations and the super-rich, Senators Rockefeller, Baldwin, Blumenthal and King sent a refreshingly different message today by announcing they’ll be filing a sensible bill to protect seniors and families from rampant drug company price-gouging. This bill would go a long way toward easing the burden on seniors struggling with high prescription drug costs and on taxpayers footing the bill for excessive drug industry profits.
From left to right, Senators Rockefeller (second from left), Blumenthal, Baldwin and King explained their bill at a news conference on April 16.
“It’s against federal law for Medicare, the nation’s biggest health plan, to use its unparalleled market power to reduce the cost of prescription drugs. This makes no sense. If the policy were changed, taxpayers and consumers would save huge amounts of money. Simply empowering Medicare to get the same bulk purchasing discounts on prescription drugs as state Medicaid programs would save the federal government more than $100 billion over 10 years, according to the Congressional Budget Office.
“When it comes to addressing our country’s fiscal challenges, we shouldn’t even talk about cutting Medicare or any services people depend on, as the Republicans have proposed. Instead, we should eliminate indefensible special-interest tax breaks and subsidies for big corporations that don’t need them, and no industry illustrates that better than Big Pharma.”
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Health Care for America Now, the nation’s leading grassroots health care coalition, led the fight to win health reform. HCAN works to promote the Affordable Care Act, protect Medicare and Medicaid, and keep Congress from being steamrolled by corporate special interests.