Medicare in Alaska and Drug Prices
16 December 2006Thank you Wikipedia for these fun facts about Medicare:
Medicare is a health insurance program administered by the United States government, covering people who are either age 65 and over, or who meet other special criteria. It was originally signed into law on July 30, 1965 by President Lyndon B. Johnson as amendments to Social Security legislation. At the bill-signing ceremony President Johnson enrolled former President Harry S. Truman as the first Medicare beneficiary and presented him with the first Medicare card.
Currently over 51,000 Alaskans are enrolled in Medicare. That’s about 8% of the state’s population, and the numbers in Alaska are about to soar as the boomers close in on 65 years of age. Here is some potentially good news for all of us–current Medicare beneficiaries, and those who will be in due time…
Senate Republican Leader Announces Plans to Oppose Negotiating Drug Prices: Rep. John Dingell (D-MI) said last week that he will move to force the Bush administration to negotiate Medicare drug prices when he takes over in January as Chairman of the Energy and Commerce Committee. Such a move would go beyond earlier efforts by Democrats in the Senate to allow the government to negotiate lower drug prices. Democrats say that if Medicare negotiated prices in bulk, it could save as much as $60 billion over 10 years, but Senator Mitch McConnell of Kentucky, the incoming Senate Republican leader, says he will oppose proposals allowing Medicare to negotiate lower drug prices. Eighty-five percent of the 1,867 adults polled in the Kaiser Family Foundation survey released December 8th said they favored such negotiations, including majorities of Republicans, Democrats and Independents. “Senator McConnell is going against what the public clearly wants,” said Edward Coyle, Executive Director of the Alliance. House Democrats will likely take the middle ground on the Medicare drug benefit, pushing for government-negotiated prices but stopping short of creating a federal Medicare plan to compete with private insurers, Rep. Pete Stark (D-CA), in line to chair the House Ways and Means Committee’s health subcommittee, said on Monday. He said he felt that a government-run plan would save money but is too ambitious for immediate action. Stark said he also wanted to reduce the number of private plans available to seniors. There are currently 40 or more plans operating in many markets; Stark would like to reduce that number to 15 or 20. (courtesy of the December 15 issue of Friday Alert, newsletter of Alliance for Retired Americans)
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