Politics Over Promises

Source: AARP.org | December 30, 2002

Politics Over Promises

With Congress' failure to pass prescription drug coverage in Medicare, politics has once again won out over a promise made to the American people, leaving millions of older citizens and their families unprotected from the double-digit price increases in prescription drugs.

The House of Representatives passed a modest prescription drug bill. The Senate was unable to come together to pass any prescription drug legislation, even though 99 of the 100 senators were on record as supporting a prescription drug benefit in Medicare. The Senate had reached some agreement around a $400 billion Medicare drug package over 10 years. Yet they could not agree on how to deliver the benefit, how a federal fallback delivery system would work if a private delivery system failed or whether to include an assets test for the benefit.

Underlying these differences was political partisanship. Many senators simply believe that a prescription drug benefit in Medicare is more valuable as a campaign issue than as policy and legislation, leaving millions of people in the lurch. The result is that politicians have an issue to argue about and spin during the election campaigns. And older Americans will try to save money by taking less than the prescribed doses of their medications or by not taking them at all.

The inability of Congress to put politics aside and pass a meaningful prescription drug bill only strengthens our resolve to continue the fight. After all, high drug costs are not only breaking the budgets of many older Americans, they are also hurting businesses and draining state budgets, with 40 states currently facing Medicaid shortfalls driven by unsustainable drug costs. In the meantime, we must do all we can to help keep drug costs down. In July, the Senate passed the Schumer-McCain bill, which would make it more difficult for brand-name drug companies to keep generics off the market.

The House should pass its own version of the bill. We must also continue to protect and expand state prescription drug programs that offer some relief against the high cost of drugs.

But we can do much more. We can show our politicians that we will hold them accountable for their promises for a prescription drug benefit in Medicare. It's not enough for them to say they voted for a benefit. Their job is to enact one into law. And, we need to let them know, in no uncertain terms, that we mean what we say.