|
SEARCH | SUBSCRIBE | ||
Some related articles : Experts Wary of G.O.P. Drug Plan Costs of the Tax Cut and of a Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit |
WASHINGTON, June 21 ≈ After an all-night session, a House committee this morning approved a bill to provide prescription drug benefits to the elderly under Medicare, setting up a vote by the full House of Representatives next week. The House Committee on Energy and Commerce endorsed the bill by a vote of 30 to 23, largely along party lines. The action came two days after the House Ways and Means Committee, which also has jurisdiction over Medicare, approved a similar measure. The House Rules Committee must now iron out differences between the two committees' versions, although nothing appears to stand in the way of a vote on the House floor before the Fourth of July recess. The Energy and Commerce Committee made one small change in the dollar figures endorsed by the Ways and Means panel two days ago, setting the limit on out-of-pocket spending by beneficiaries to $3,700 a year, $100 lower than what Ways and Means members approved. But it is unlikely that a bill will emerge from the full Congress any time soon, since the House is controlled by the Republicans and the Senate by Democrats. And no prescription-drug proposal in the Senate has the 60 votes that are required to shut off debate in that chamber. Nonetheless, the vote by the Energy and Commerce Committee this morning was significant, since it cleared the way for House passage, which in turn will put political pressure on the Senate as the elections draw near. President Bush generally supports the Republican-backed proposal nearing its final form in the House, although he started out wanting legislation that would spend $190 billion over 10 years rather than the $310 billion envisioned by House lawmakers. Senators have been talking about spending $400 billion to $500 billion over a decade, so the two Houses of Congress may have to work hard to bridge their differences once the Senate adopts its version. Drug companies support the Republicans' general approach, which depends on competing private insurers to devise and market drug insurance policies ≈ a product that does not exist. Democrats have described the emerging Republican bill as a gift to the drug industry, "a political payoff," as Representative Frank Pallone Jr., a New Jersey Democrat, put it the other day. But the overnight debate that ended with the vote of the Energy and Commerce Committee at 8:25 this morning, while spirited, was not bitterly partisan. The members may have had enough of harsh words for the time being. Or they may have been tired from a Thursday night baseball game between Democrats and Republicans. In any event, committee members gave their chairman, Billy Tauzin, a Louisiana Republican, a round of applause. FAIR USE NOTICE: This page contains copyrighted material the use of which has not been specifically authorized by the copyright owner. Global Action on Aging distributes this material without profit to those who have expressed a prior interest in receiving the included information for research and educational purposes. We believe this constitutes a fair use of any such copyrighted material as provided for in 17 U.S.C § 107. If you wish to use copyrighted material from this site for purposes of your own that go beyond fair use, you must obtain permission from the copyright owner.
|