House due to vote on prescription bill
WASHINGTON (AP) – House Republicans hunted for the final votes needed to pass Medicare prescription drug legislation on Thursday, brushing aside Democratic charges that the bill was crafted to help the GOP at the polls rather than senior citizens at the pharmacy. “No bill before its time,” Rep. Bill Thomas, R-Calif., quipped as the GOP high command sought to coax a dwindling band of rebels into the fold.
The legislation would commit $320 million over the next decade to establish a system of Medicare prescription drug coverage through the private insurance industry.
Costs would be heavily subsidized for low-income Medicare beneficiaries.
Under a typical plan, others would pay a monthly premium of roughly $33 and an annual deductible of about $250.
The government would pay 80 percent of the next $1,000 of drug costs and 50 percent of the subsequent $1,000.
All beneficiaries – low-income included – would have to pick up the tab beyond that, until they reached $3,700 in out-of-pocket expenses, at which time all additional costs would be covered.
The measure also provides billions of dollars in increased Medicare payments to hospitals, doctors and nursing facilities.
Democrats said the Republican bill was more loophole than coverage – focusing principally on the gap between $2,000 and $3,700.
“They are so intent on trickery and deception and illusion,” Rep. Dick Gephardt of Missouri said of the Republicans.
“They are so interested in politics and the next election rather than doing simply what is right for the American people,” the Democratic leader added at a news conference hours before the debate began.
Democrats prepared a far more costly alternative that would offer a new government-run prescription drug benefit under Medicare. It included a $25 monthly premium, a $100 deductible and no gap in coverage.
Cost estimates ranged from $800 billion to $1 trillion or more for the plan, but no official figures were available.
Republicans expressed confidence they would prevail, as they have on a series of their priorities over the past 18 months.
“We haven’t failed yet,” Thomas told reporters, even though the GOP has the narrowest House majority either party has possessed in decades.
Passage would send the measure to the Senate, where prospects for enactment were clouded.
The House vote was prelude to an election-year battle on an issue of paramount concern to senior citizens, a group that votes in disproportionately large numbers in midterm elections.
Republican strategists said passage of the bill through the House would help their candidates blunt the inevitable Democratic campaign commercial attacks.
Polling shows that Democrats are heavily favored over Republicans in their handling of the issue – 48 percent to 31 percent in one private GOP poll.
But if the 2000 campaign is any guide, Republicans will be ready with their own commercials.
peting passage of a plan offering prescription drug coverage to 39 million Americans on Medicare.
Democrats argued that the GOP measure, as written, would mean huge profits for the pharmaceutical industry and would lead the way to privatizing the health care program established in 1965.
There was little doubt that the drug industry favored the measure. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry’s trade group, has spent millions of dollars helping finance television commercials in scattered locations to support the measure.
Republicans said their approach would give senior citizens access to prescription drug coverage through the private insurance market. They circulated an estimate from the Congressional Budget Office that 89 percent of all beneficiaries enrolled in Medicare would participate in the prescription drug program. Another 7 percent of all beneficiaries have other coverage, the CBO said.
In the run-up to the vote, GOP leaders sought to win the support of several Republicans seeking changes or additions to the measure.
Some conservatives objected to the creation of a new government benefit program that was guaranteed for all seniors, while others objected to the price tag.
Others sought inclusion of provisions to bring down the cost of prescription drugs, such as importation of U.S.-made pharmaceuticals sold more cheaply abroad and revised patent rules to make low-cost generic drugs more available.