Senate Panel Rejects Bid to Add Drug
Discount
Published: September 25, 2009, New York Times
WASHINGTON — President
Obama scored a big victory on Thursday as the Senate Finance Committee
rejected a proposal to require pharmaceutical companies to give bigger discounts
to Medicare
on drugs dispensed to older Americans with low incomes.
Senator Bill Nelson of Florida proposed discounts for drugs
dispensed to some older Americans.
The victory came at the expense of senators in Mr. Obamafs own party who had
championed the proposal. The vote, in effect, upheld a deal reached in June by
the White House and the drug industry, which saw the agreement as a possible way
to avoid more onerous requirements that might be imposed by Congress.
The proposal, an amendment by Senator Bill Nelson, Democrat of Florida, would
have required drug makers to provide Medicare with discounts in the form of
rebates totaling more than $100 billion over 10 years.
Some of the money would have been used to close a gap in Medicare coverage of
prescription drugs. In 2007, more than eight million Medicare beneficiaries fell
into the gap, known as the doughnut hole.
Three Democratic senators — Max
Baucus of Montana, Thomas
R. Carper of Delaware and Robert
Menendez of New Jersey — joined all the Republicans on the panel in
defeating the amendment by a vote of 13 to 10.
The committee plodded through the health care legislation for a third day, as
lawmakers debated the proper role of government in securing insurance coverage
for all Americans. With many amendments still to be offered, Senator Kent
Conrad, Democrat of North Dakota, said it was highly unlikely that the panel
could finish its work this week — the goal set by Mr. Baucus, the committee
chairman.
Under the June agreement with the White House, drug makers pledged $80
billion over 10 years to help greform our troubled health care system.h In the
belief that their contribution was capped, drug companies have run
advertisements in support of a health care overhaul.
The rebates proposed by Mr. Nelson would have more than doubled the amount of
money to be given up by the industry.
Mr. Carper said the proposal to wring more rebate money out of the drug
companies would gundermine our ability to pass comprehensive health
care reform in this Congress,h because the drug industry would have opposed
the legislation if it included mandatory rebates.
In arguing against the proposal, Mr. Carper said, White House officials told
him that ga deal is a deal,h and he agreed.
Ken Johnson, senior vice president of the Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America, said the Nelson proposal could have caused job losses
in the drug industry.
gIf our contribution to health care reform exceeds $80 billion, you reach a
point where you risk sacrificing someonefs job for someone elsefs health
insurance,h Mr. Johnson said.
Drug makers already pay rebates on drugs dispensed to many Medicaid
recipients. Mr. Nelsonfs proposal would have required them to pay similar
rebates on drugs prescribed for another group: low-income older Americans
eligible for both Medicaid and Medicare. The group includes people taking
numerous prescriptions
for multiple chronic illnesses, so they account for a large share of drug
spending.
When Congress added a drug benefit to Medicare in 2003, about six million
older Americans who had been receiving drug coverage through Medicaid were
shifted into the new Medicare drug program. As a result, Mr. Nelson said, gthe
government pays higher prices for drugs, and the pharmaceutical industry got a
windfall.h
Senator Charles
E. Schumer, Democrat of New York, said he was gnot at the tableh when the
White House and the pharmaceutical industry reached their deal, so he did not
feel bound by it.
Senator Charles
E. Grassley of Iowa, the senior Republican on the Finance Committee, said
that mandatory rebates were equivalent to price controls.
gOver time,h he said, gdrug manufacturers would partially offset the rebates
by charging higher prices for new drugs. The middle class would end up paying
for this.h
In the House, Democrats on Thursday discussed how to meld health care bills
approved by three committees.
Speaker Nancy
Pelosi affirmed her support for creating a government insurance plan to
compete with private insurers. A public plan would increase competition, lower
costs and gsave enormous amounts of moneyh for families, businesses and
taxpayers, Ms. Pelosi said.
She scorned the idea of using the public plan as a backup to the private
market, in case insurers did not meet certain goals for making affordable
coverage available.
Senator Olympia
J. Snowe, Republican of Maine, and other centrists have proposed such a
gtrigger mechanism.h
But Ms. Pelosi said, gA trigger is an excuse for not doing anything.h
The timetable for bringing a measure to the House floor is uncertain,
although Democrats said they were making steady progress. They said they hoped
to finish writing their bill next week and submit it to the Congressional
Budget Office for review, so the full House could begin debate in
mid-October.
In the House, as in the Senate, Democrats are still trying to decide
contentious questions like how to restrict the use of federal money for
abortions and how to prevent illegal immigrants from gaining benefits under the
legislation.
gWefre narrowing the areas that we have to bring to resolution,h Ms. Pelosi
said.
Carl Hulse contributed
reporting.
A version of this article appeared in
print on September 25, 2009, on page A18 of the New York edition.