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Prescription
Drugs for Elderly Closer Senate Majority Leader Bill Frist said congressional
negotiators need to finish their work Wednesday to meet a tight timetable
for passage by Nov. 21, Congress' target date to adjourn for the year. Talks ended Tuesday night on a note of restrained
optimism from several participants in the closed-door talks. "We're
very close to having an option that virtually everyone can support,
holding their noses in some cases," said Sen. Orrin Hatch, R-Utah. Frist, R-Tenn., later met in his Capitol office with two
key Democrats, then said he intended to spend the next several hours
trying to bring "a lot of focus and a lot of pressure on a lot of
people" to nail down an agreement. At its heart, any compromise would create a new
prescription drug benefit for the 40 million American elderly and disabled
people who receive Medicare. At the same time, it would create a new
private insurance option for beneficiaries, a step that Republicans argue
is necessary to modernize Medicare and hold down costs in the long run. At one point Tuesday, House and Senate Republicans asked
the only two Democrats to leave the conference room so Republicans could
debate their next move privately. Sens. Max Baucus of Several sources, speaking on condition of anonymity,
said GOP lawmakers discussed whether to turn their efforts toward writing
a bill aimed at winning primarily Republican support. That seemed unlikely, given the months of effort
involved in producing a bipartisan bill in the Senate. The House Republican plan for direct competition between
traditional Medicare and private plans has for several months been the
chief obstacle to a compromise. It was part of a House bill that passed by
a single vote and drew just 9 Democratic votes. The Senate bill had bipartisan support and contained no
such provision, which Democrats strongly oppose. Under the House measure, starting in 2010, the
government's per-person subsidy for Medicare would be calculated in part
based on the cost of coverage offered by private companies. The current
subsidy is set according to the cost of providing a fixed benefit, as
defined by the government. Democrats argue the result of the GOP-sought change
would be to raise premiums for seniors who remain in traditional Medicare.
Estimates by Medicare's experts point in that direction, with premium
prices varying widely from region to region. The search for a compromise has included offers to have
competition only in selected regions and, officials said, to resort to a
limited form of competition only if spending on the drug measure exceeds
$400 billion over the next decade, the ceiling set by President Bush. The
latter proposal was made Monday by California Rep. Bill Thomas, the lead
House negotiator, and turned down by Baucus, said officials familiar with
the deliberations. Republicans, in turn, rejected Baucus' proposal to make
it easier for seniors to qualify for low-income subsidies envisioned in
the drug bill. Even an agreement would not necessarily signal the end
of the years long effort to add a prescription drug benefit. One lawmaker
involved in the talks predicted the decisions made by negotiators would
cost more than $400 billion. "I expect it will come in above and we'll make adjustments," said Sen. Don Nickles, R-Okla. Copyright
© 2002 Global Action on Aging |
