Sun Jan 14, 2007 at 09:18:33 PM EST
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| Here's Mike Ferguson's (R-NJ7) statement on the floor of the House on the new bill that will authorize the Medicare program to negotiate pharmaceutical prices in Part D. We've added a few lines that were in the prepared speech we found in an unsecure folder on his website, but strangely were not delivered on the floor.
Mr. Speaker, unfortunately [for my huge contributors in the pharmaceutical industry] today we are hearing a lot from the proponents of H.R. 4 [but I will try to obfuscate and twist the facts so you get confused]. We are hearing a lot of misinformation and lot of rhetoric [as I speak now], and I think some of these things need to be corrected for the record [but they won't be corrected by me].
The biggest misconception is that the buying power of Medicare patients is currently unused [though it is being misused because it is being split up amongst hundreds of plans], and that somehow this new plan is the only way to leverage lower prices for prescription drugs [which it is, but ignore that fact]. In fact, prescription drug plans under Medicare part D right now are aggressively negotiating discounts [but not passing them along to the taxpayers, since they are trying to maximize profits]; they have been before part D [for themselves as they try to maximize their own profits], and they continue to do so very well since the program's inception [just one year ago] and they are going to continue to look to negotiate lower prices [so they can, again, maximize their profits on the backs of the taxpayers]. They have been negotiating [for their own benefit] and giving beneficiaries choices [that can change at any time even though the beneficiary is stuck with that plan for a year] and access to the newest breakthrough therapies [that the drug plan providers choose to offer]. |
| huntsu :: Mike Ferguson's Comment On Part D, With What He Should Have Said |
Through Medicare part D, in its current form, beneficiaries have access to over 4,000 prescription medications [if their particular plan offers them] at a much lower cost than previously estimated when we passed this legislation a few years ago [though the cost is still higher than the Veterans Administration which actually negotiates prices]. CMS has indicated that beneficiaries are saving an average of $1,200 annually on their drug costs [though they could be saving more if we cut out the profit-making middlemen and negotiated prices].
Program costs are an estimated 30 percent less in 2006 and 21 percent less over the next 10 years due in large part to competition and negotiating of lower drug costs [but don't ask me about how much more would be saved if the government was able to negotiated prices because I haven't asked since my political contributors don't want me to know].
Currently, Medicare prescription plans have the discretion [which means if it helps their profits they will and if it hurts their profits they won't] to use cost-containment tools. They can use formularies [but don't have to if it doesn't maximize their profits], and many of them do. Unlike Medicaid and the VA, Medicare beneficiaries actually have the power to choose which plan they want. If they see a plan with a formulary they like or don't like, they can choose or not choose that based on their own discretion [but are still stuck with it for a year, though the plan is allowed to change during that year]; but if Medicare or the government, as prescribed under this bill, under H.R. 4 and its required mandatory negotiations, it will have to impose a uniform restriction on medicines, patients will lose their choices, and they will be stuck in a one-size-fits-all plan [though that is what I want to think will happen, and not what is written in the bill]. They will be stuck with a restrictive national formulary and no choices whatsoever [except for all the drugs currently available along with lower co-pays, no donut hole where they lose coverage but have to pay premiums, and lower taxes since the government lays out less money for the program].
You have to be hiding under a rock [and I know how much fun that can be since I am usually there on all issues related to my contributor's business] recently if you have missed the numerous experts [paid by the same people who fund my campaigns] that are telling us [with their fingers crossed behind their backs] that this brand of negotiation will limit choice and will not save money. I urge a "no" vote on H.R. 4.
It's so nice when they tell the truth, even when they don't. |
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