Candidates Spar Over Medicare Prescription Drugs
Saturday, January 28th, 2012
Florida has long been popular with retirees. According to the U.S. Census Bureau, 17.3% of Florida residents are age 65 and older, which is much higher than the national average of 13 percent. That’s almost one in five Floridians who have reached Medicare age. And health care issues are critical to seniors, whether they are healthy or suffering from a life-threatening illness such as mesothelioma.
Next week Florida will hold its Republican presidential primary election. The four candidates still in the running are Newt Gingrich, Rand Paul, Rick Santorum, and Mitt Romney. Much of their sparring this week has been over the past, and future, of Medicare prescription drug coverage, also called Medicare Part D.
Even though it was passed by a Republican-led Congress and signed into law by a Republican president, many conservatives have huge misgivings about Part D. According to Bruce Bartlett, a domestic policy adviser for President Ronald Reagan, in its first ten years Part D will cost the federal government $1 trillion.
Worse, when the act creating Part D was passed, there was no consideration given to paying for it. Today, Congress negotiates every penny of new spending, often cutting the budget of one program to pay for another one. But the entire cost of Part D “all went on the national credit card,” Bartlett said. On top of that, the bill was criticized as a giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry because it forbids the government from negotiating for lower drug prices.
As explained in the last post, Newt Gingrich played a large behind-the-scenes role in getting the legislation passed that created Part D. This week, Mitt Romney accused Mr. Gingrich of influence peddling. While he was working to persuade Republican legislators to approve Part D, Romney said, pharmaceutical companies were contributing money to a think tank owned by Gingrich.
But Mr. Romney has a problem with Medicare Part D also. All four remaining candidates for the Republican presidential nomination have called for the repeal of the Affordable Care Act, called “Obamacare.” The ACA already has provided additional assistance for seniors who fall into the “doughnut hole” prescription drugs coverage gap, and is scheduled to close the gap entirely.
If the ACA is repealed, these seniors’ prescription drugs costs would skyrocket. None of the candidates has addressed this issue.
Beyond Medicare Part D, however, the candidates have avoided talking about those “entitlements” that mostly benefit seniors. According to Alan Gomez in USA Today, “people are frustrated that the Republican presidential candidates have largely avoided the issues of Medicare and Social Security with the GOP primary coming up on Tuesday.”
Rep. Paul has said little about Medicare except that seniors ought to be able to opt out of it. But Gingrich, Santorum and Romney are on record as favoring some plan for privatizing Medicare as well as Social Security. In other states, they have been more forthcoming about their ideas for cutting, capping, privatizing, and downsizing Medicare and Social Security. In Florida, though — not so much.
