Public Employee Press

Bushwatch:
Medicare, Medicaid—tilting toward business

Bush’s lies keep working — against working people.

When the president pushed Congress to enact the new Medicare drug program, his 10-year cost estimate was $395 billion. The low-ball price included 2004 and 2005, years before the plan would start. Now that Part D is actually going into effect, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office says the true amount will be $849 billion.

The new Medicare drug plan, an improvement for seniors with no prescription coverage, is booby-trapped for union and employer drug plans and their participants.

But the plan looks like a windfall for commercial insurers and pharmacy benefit managers. Their business opportunities are bright as the population ages and needs more medications, and their risks are minimized by a provision for government subsidies in case they lose money.

Wouldn’t it be nice if the president’s plan for privatized investment accounts in Social Security also included government protection against financial losses?

I guess you have to be wealthy to deserve a government safety net.

The president lies about savings as well as spending. He told the American people his proposals for Medicaid cutbacks would save $60 billion over the next 10 years. But the CBO could document only $27 billion. Perhaps that’s because Bush’s health officials seem unwilling or unable to enforce the law that says drug companies must reduce prices on drugs bought for poor people through Medicaid.

Medicaid is entitled to the “best price” charged any buyer on brand-name drugs, but the Government Accountability Office reported recently that the Medicaid agency doesn’t even try to verify price data they get from drug manufacturers.

And when the pill makers conceal the information, the feds don’t look too hard. Yet business has the nerve to complain about over-regulation.

— Bill Schleicher