When the White House crafted its Medicare “reform” package in 2003, it specifically outlawed using Medicare to negotiate more affordable drugs. Former HHS Secretary Tommy Thompson recently said the limitation was one his biggest disappointments during his time in the Bush administration.
The complaint, of course, didn’t make any sense — Thompson backed the provision in 2003, so he has little right to complain now — but it briefly sparked renewed interest in making it easier to lower prescription drug prices by leveraging Medicare’s buying power.
And, best of all, congressional support for a change appears to be growing.
With 51 Senators now apparently backing legislation to empower the government to negotiate lower Medicare drug prices, Senate Democratic leaders are pledging to help Sens. Olympia Snowe (R-Maine) and Ron Wyden (D-Ore.) force a vote on the issue.
“We will help them however we can,” said Minority Whip Dick Durbin (D-Ill.).
During the Senate’s budget floor debate last month, a vote on that issue failed, 49-50. But two of those “no” voters — Sens. Arlen Specter (R-Pa.) and Gordon Smith (R-Ore.) — have indicated to Snowe and Wyden that they would likely support the prescription drug negotiating authority proposal if it came to the Senate floor again. Their votes would give Snowe and Wyden 51 votes for their proposal. […]
The current legislation, in fact, would be stronger than the nonbinding amendment that failed, because it would explicitly empower the secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate lower drug prices.
Hey, Tommy Thompson, you’ll help lobby lawmakers to make the change now that you’ve seen the light, right?
Putting aside whether the House would be amenable to changing the law like this, the real question is what Bush would do to stop it.
Bush has made it abundantly clear that he strongly opposes every possible approach to lowering the price of prescription medication, including reimportation from Canada and Europe. Even today, we learned that the Bush administration has told states not to steer Medicare beneficiaries to drug plans that could save them money, despite a federal advisory commission that recently recommended such a move.
How, exactly, would Bush have the gumption to veto a bi-partisan measure to use Medicare to lower drug prices? If it passes the Senate, watch for the White House to everything possible to kill the initiative in the House.