RE: Health reform bill

August 11, 2009

Hi Margaret,

There really isn't an " Obama health reform bill " as such--there are a

number of people in congress hammering together a bill and what is and

is not in it changes all the time. We've got 2 big problems with

health care in America--one is that we have so many uninsured and

underinsured and the other is that we pay twice as much for health

care as people do in the other developed countries. The costs are a

big concern as they are rising much faster than inflation and have

been doing that for quite a number of years with no end in sight. If

something isn't done we won't be able to afford Medicare and seniors

will really start getting rationing.

The insurance companies and the drug companies both support health

care reform--but they only want a mandate (meaning they want everyone

to be insured). They don't want anything that would cut costs. The

items in " health care reform " that are the least likely to be included

in a final bill are the things that cut costs. Insurance companies

and drug companies are putting tons of money into this fight and it

does look like a lot of people are falling for their scare tactics.

It is easy to see why they want only the mandate--they will have more

customers and their profits will increase. But all the rest of us

will just be paying more.

One of the cost cutting proposals backed by Obama is a provision to

enable negotiations between Medicare and drug companies on drug

pricing. When Medicare Part D was enacted part of that bill made it

illegal for Medicare to negotiate better prices for drugs. That is a

factor in the high drug prices we see. It makes no sense for our

largest insurer (Medicare) to not be able to negotiate prices but the

drug lobby won that one.

Here's a piece from a town hall meeting Obama held recently in Ohio on

this topic:

Q I also represent a group called Senior Voice and we, by the way,

sent over 4,000 signatures to our congressional members asking their

support of Medicare. And so my question is about Medicare and the

doughnut hole in particular. We know that about 3.4 million seniors

will fall into the doughnut hole on an annual basis. This represents

about one in four seniors that will participate in the Part D

program. When seniors fall into the doughnut hole, they then have to

make choices about whether or not they take their medications; they

break their pills in half; they make a decision about buying

medication or purchasing food. My question to you, Mr. President, is

that, will you support legislation that is currently being introduced

in the House to close the doughnut hole over the next several years?

THE PRESIDENT: Well, I'm going to do more than that for you. In our

health care reform proposal we have already extracted concessions from

the pharmaceutical industry that we know will right away close half of

that doughnut hole. They've already put $80 billion on the table.

That's part of the reason AARP endorsed the bill.

Now, by the way, for those of you who don't know what the doughnut

hole is, the way the Medicare prescription drug plan works is that it

helps you pay for your prescription drugs until you hit a certain

ceiling, a certain level of several thousand dollars, and then

suddenly, the subsidies, the help from the federal government just go

away. And you've got to pay out-of-pocket expenses of several more

thousands of dollars until you get to the point where help kicks in

again. So that's why they call it the doughnut hole, because there's

a hole right in the middle where you don't get any help. And it costs

seniors thousands of dollars.

One of the things that we can do through reform is to make sure that

we are moving to close that doughnut hole. That's a commitment that

will be contained in this health care reform bill that we get passed.

I would love to see that donut hole made smaller and even better

have it closed. But drug prices must come down before Medicare can

afford to close the hole. That will only happen if the government is

allowed to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices. It's very

frustrating to see so many people in this country so willing to

believe some pretty bizarre myths being propagated by the right wing

(and likely backed by insurance & drug lobbies). I talked last year

with one of my conservative senators and he argued that what we need

to get health care costs down is to have the users of medicines pay a

larger share--then people would think twice before buying expensive

drugs. People should be aware what the options are here--if we don't

get the " Obama " health care reform we will likely be up for the

conservative reform agenda down the line. The ideas from the right

would raise costs considerably for those of us with a chronic

disease. One thing that everyone agrees on is that we need reform.

Medicare will go broke--so we cannot just leave things alone and do

nothing.

Hope this helps.

Dorothy

On Aug 11, 2009, at 1:12 PM, Margaret Peake wrote:

> Does anyone know if the Obama health reform bill includes a

> provision regarding pice on rare drugs, like Gleevec, that allows

> for affordable, lower cost?

>

> Margaret ,

> mpraymond@...

> margaret-raymond@...

>

August 11, 2009

This is very informative. Thanks, Dorothy.

There's always big trouble when you threaten to cut off the money flow to

someone who's been enjoying it, no strings attached. I expect they (insurers)

will pull out all the stops to defeat any substantial change. They've been able

to cherry pick folks like us out of the picture for a long time.

From: doemery@...

Date: Tue, 11 Aug 2009 15:09:36 -0400

Subject: Re: [ ] Health reform bill