Dirty Politics / $100 Billion for Medicare Prescriptions Will Further Devastate US Medicine

100 Billion for Medicare Prescriptions Will Further Devastate US Medicine

President Bush formally asked the US Congress February 4 to spend billions of dollars to enhance the nation's bioterrorism preparedness and to sign on to a plan to deliver a prescription drug benefit for 40 million Medicare beneficiaries.

Bush asked Congress to spend $489 billion through HHS for health and welfare programs next year, a 6.5% increase over last year's spending.

The budget calls for $4.3 billion in bioterrorism spending, $1.5 billion for facility upgrades at the National Institutes of Health, vaccine and diagnostic research, and nearly $200 million for facility and lab enhancements at CDC. However, the president's budget cuts $1 billion from CDC research programs on other areas, including a $57 million cut in chronic disease prevention programs.

Congress mandated a doubling of the NIH budget between 1998 and 2003. But, several institutes at the NIH could see their scheduled 15% funding increases for 2003 slowed as bioterrorism spending takes a large piece from the agency's $3.7 billion proposed budget. While infectious disease research would see a nearly 60% increase next year, spending at several other institutes would increase by only 8% to 9%.

The money also includes $77 billion in funding to help states provide prescription drugs for low-income seniors through the Medicaid program.

Members of Congress will ultimately have to decide which spending priorities to approve. A prescription drug benefit, and whether or not it should go hand-in-hand with overall reforms to the system, has occupied lawmakers' attention for several years.

Michael Segal, a spokesman for Senate Finance Committee Chair Max S. Baucus (D-MT), suggested that the $190 billion over 10 years in the president's budget will not go far enough to enact a universal drug benefit for seniors. He noted that Congress set aside considerably more money -- $300 billion -- in its budget resolution last year.

"The priority of a prescription drug benefit is no less important now than it was then," he said.

Segal also said Baucus would look skeptically at attempts to spend large amounts of money on overall Medicare reforms before a prescription drug benefit is paid for. "Any plan we enact has to be on where the majority of funding goes toward a universal prescription plan," he said.

Reuters February 4, 2002

As the late senator Everett Dirksen from Illinois was fond of saying when he was talking about the Defense Budget, "a billion here, a billion there, and before you know it you are talking real money".

77 Billion Dollars.

That is just the start. Can anyone honestly say that when the federal government gets involved that they ever wind up spending less money that they had planned?

Last year we only spent $325 billion, and now the government wants to tack on another $77 billion, nearly a 25% increase. If it stopped there it would not be so bad, but look at the projections from the government's own web site.

• Between 2010 and 2030, the number of persons age 65 and older will increase from 39.7 million to 69.1 million. That's an average of one and a half million more seniors per year for 20 years.
• During that same period, the Medicare actuaries project Medicare spending will increase from $324 billion to $694 billion, dollars normaled to 2000 equivalents.

These are HUGE sums of money.

And for what purpose?

For the ostensibly noble goal of improving the health of our senior citizens?

Absolutely not.

If you can't see through this smoke screen let me help you. The drug companies are behind this all the way -- they are the ones who will benefit from this government largesse.

The drug companies spent over two billion dollars last year on direct-to-consumer advertising so they could convince the public that they needed their drug based solutions for health.

Not a bad investment, considering they stand on increasing sales by nearly $100 billion alone thanks to the federal government and Medicare.

Fortunately, there are solutions and I am committed to facilitate those with your help. There is no reason that the drug companies need to be enriched any further at the expense of our citizens.