Medicare Drug Prices

    Let us get on to the debate over whether the government should be negotiating lower drug prices for medicare seniors!

    Dan Bartlett says that does not need to be done as the prescription drug prices have come down.

HEALTH CARE -- WHITE HOUSE SPOKESMAN INSISTS PRESCRIPTION DRUGS ARE CHEAP ENOUGH: The federal government does not need to negotiate lower prescription drug prices for seniors on Medicare, claimed White House counselor Dan Bartlett said yesterday, insisting that drug prices have "come down" and that "the proof is in the pudding." Wherever the proof might be, it certainly isn't in the facts. Drug makers have increased the prices on many of the top selling drugs this year by as much as six percent, double the inflation rate. Because Medicare doesn't require any discount over the list price, "drug makers are being paid as much as 20 percent more for the same drugs that they had already been providing to recipients under Medicaid." Furthermore, spiraling drug costs are expanding the coverage gap in Medicare Part D, leaving millions of Americans without coverage. The New York Times reports that, with the current Medicare prescription benefit, big drug companies are enjoying "a financial windfall larger than even the most optimistic Wall Street analysts had predicted." Taxpayers could save as much as $190 billion over the next ten years if Medicaid negotiated prices directly with drug makers, rather than through private insurers which "pay higher prices than government agencies, like the Veterans Administration, that buy medicines directly from drug makers."

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