NCOA Opposes House Proposal for Medicare and Prescription Drug Bills

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NCOA Opposes House Proposal

for Medicare and Prescription Drug Bills

NCOA, June 23, 2003

The House Ways and Means (W&M) and Energy and Commerce (E&C) Committees passed virtually identical Medicare and prescription drug bills last week. One key difference is the W&M bill includes a new home health copayment, while the E&C bill does not. The National Council on the Aging (NCOA) does not support the House bills. The Senate spent the week considering amendments to the bill passed in committee on June 12.

Amendments that passed would permit reimportation of drugs from Canada as a pilot program and speed access to generic drugs. NCOA strongly prefers the Senate bill, in part because the House bill: has much weaker low-income protections; is structured so that 48 percent of beneficiaries would fall into the "doughnut hole" with no coverage; fails to include a government "fallback" program; sets a dangerous precedent by cutting catastrophic protections based on beneficiary income; and includes the traditional Medicare program in a competitive system after 2010, which could result in significant premium increases. The House and Senate bills will be reconciled in a conference in July.