|
|
|
|
||
|
||
|
|
||
| SEARCH | SUBSCRIBE | ||
|
 |
Albany
still makes room for lobbies ALBANY - Even with New York State facing a fiscal crisis and hard
economic times, cost- saving measures opposed by powerful lobbies are
rarely adopted by the Legislature. One example occurred in the waning days of
the most recent legislative session. The Legislature seemed ready this year to
impose controls on a taxpayer-financed prescription-drug program that even
some advocates for poor people said were needed. But closed-door
negotiations fell apart at the last minute when key advocacy groups that
had received money from pharmaceutical companies pushed hard for the plan´s
defeat. The fate of the plan, which Gov. George
Pataki estimated would have saved the cash-strapped state $130 million,
illustrates the power special- interest lobbies exert in Albany. For several nights early in June, about 20
people filed into a small office under a stairwell near the Senate
chambers in the state Capitol. The mission of the lawmakers, legislative
staffers and Pataki aides was to perform a modest trim from the enormous
$6 billion bill that New York taxpayers pay for prescription drugs for the
poor through the Medicaid program. The task facing the group, which sometimes
met until 1 a.m. in the waning days of the legislative session, seemed far
from insurmountable. The proposal, which originated with Pataki, was to
limit the selection of drugs to the more than 3 million New Yorkers who
get Medicaid benefits. Thirty other states, some of them even more
fiscally hard-pressed than the Empire State, had already enacted something
similar through what´s known as a "preferred-drug list.´´ The
theory is that several brands of drugs, especially for common ailments
such as arthritis, high blood pressure and acidic stomachs, are virtually
equally effective. If the state required doctors to prescribe
only one brand that Medicaid would pay for, it could negotiate a steep
discount from the pharmaceutical company that sells the drug because the
state could guarantee such a big volume of business. "I don´t see any reason why you can´t
do this for cholesterol or arthritis or other common illnesses where the
drugs are similar," said Michael Burgess of the Statewide Coalition
for the Aging, which supported the proposal. "You have to do
cost-saving somewhere and this seemed like a good plan.´´ "It´s a terrific idea," said Kemp
Hannon, R-Nassau County, the chairman of the Senate Health Committee.
"Most private health plans already do it.´´ The only apparent losers in the plan
appeared to be pharmaceutical companies that would be forced to provide
the discounts if they wanted to keep the state´s business, cutting into
their profits. In the end, they prevailed. Undone deal The deal fell apart because the Assembly
didn´t like the idea of having cost-saving as the chief criterion of what
drugs to pick, said Richard Gottfried, D-Manhattan, the chairman of the
Assembly´s Health Committee. Others said that while Pataki and the Senate
were willing to go along with exempting drugs used to treat mental illness
from the measure, the Assembly also wanted no limits on drugs used to
treat the routine physical problems of the mentally ill, such as high
blood pressure and arthritis. "The Assembly was unwilling to
legislate any meaningful program," said Robert Hinckley, Pataki´s
top health adviser. A key opponent was Peter Rivera, D-Bronx,
the chairman of the Assembly´s Mental Health Committee. During the
spring, he issued a torrent of press releases assailing what he called
"prescription-drug rationing" that would be "a dangerous
step that will adversely impact the lives of millions of New Yorkers.´´ Rivera is also the chairman of the
Legislature´s Puerto Rican-Hispanic Task Force. Drug companies and their
industry group, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America,
have given Latino community groups hundreds of thousands of dollars in the
past several years. But Rivera said there was no connection
between the donations and his opposition to the money-saving drug
proposal. "Historically, pharmaceuticals have a
large interest in giving out monies to different groups - elderly, youth
groups, so on and so forth," Rivera said. "The fact they may
give money to the task force is not the reason I´m for or against the PDL
(preferred drug list)." Rivera pointed to his opposition to further
deregulation of cable TV, which the cable industry wants, as an example of
his objectivity because those companies also give money to Hispanic
community groups. The state Mental Health Association is
another preferred-drug list opponent that gets support from pharmaceutical
companies - about $50,000, said Executive Director Joseph Glazier - but is
not affected by the money. "We have a board resolution that says
we will take no money intended to influence our policies, ´´ he said,
adding that the drug-company money amounts to only about 5 percent of the
agency´s million-dollar annual budget. Glazier said the group opposes the drug-list
idea because it "protects pills and not patients." "Nationally, there has been a concern
that some advocacy groups are affected by drug-company funding,"
Gottfried said. "Whether it´s true of some groups in New York, I
wouldn´t want to comment." The pharmaceutical trade group gave money to
the organizations because "we like to work with our allies,"
said Jeff Trewhitt, a spokesman for the Pharmaceutical Research and
Manufacturers of America. He said his group opposes the
preferred-drug-list idea because the decision of what medications to
prescribe should be left up to doctors. Whether the donations from pharmaceutical
companies work or not, the money weakens the argument of nonprofit groups
that take it, said Blair Horner of the New York Public Interest Research
Group. "Any time you take money from corporations, it can undermine your effectiveness. That´s the trade-off," he said. "You´re giving your opponents a weapon." Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
