The most important problem with the drug bill is that it doesn't offer direct coverage from Medicare. Instead, people must sign up with private plans offered by insurance companies.
This has three bad effects. First, the elderly face wildly confusing choices. Second, costs are high, because the bill creates an extra, unnecessary layer of bureaucracy. Finally, the fragmentation into private plans prevents Medicare from using bulk purchasing to reduce drug prices.
It's all bad, from the public's point of view. But it's good for insurance companies, which get extra business even though they serve no useful function, and it's even better for drug companies, which are able to charge premium prices. So whose interests do you think Mr. Scully and Mr. Tauzin represented?
Who are Scully & Tausin?
Consider the career trajectories of the two men who played the most important role in putting together the Medicare legislation.
Thomas Scully was a hospital industry lobbyist before President Bush appointed him to run Medicare. In that job, Mr. Scully famously threatened to fire his chief actuary if he told Congress the truth about cost projections for the Medicare drug program.
Mr. Scully had good reasons not to let anything stand in the way of the drug bill. He had received a special ethics waiver from his superiors allowing him to negotiate for future jobs with lobbying and investment firms - firms that had a strong financial stake in the form of the bill - while still in public office. He left public service, if that's what it was, almost as soon as the bill was passed, and is once again a lobbyist, now for drug companies.
Meanwhile, Representative Billy Tauzin, the bill's point man on Capitol Hill, quickly left Congress once the bill was passed to become president of Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the powerful drug industry lobby.
Surely both men's decisions while in office were influenced by the desire to please their potential future employers. And that undue influence explains why the drug legislation is such a mess.
And don't forget - Rep Tom Petri's comments:
Without question the most significant domestic legislative accomplishment in 2003 was congressional passage of Medicare drug reform.
Now, Petri has still not sold his up to $25 million stake in Walgreen's.
I would like to point out, as I have had questions from a friend on this, that it is not Walgreen's fault that Petri is enriching himself through this program. From all reports they are working hard to provide the best service possible to people in this system
However - this passed by one vote. And Petri, because of his Walgreen's stock, should not have voted.
The problem is the decisions that are made by Congress because of personal financial interests.
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