$806 Billion: The Real Cost of the GOP Failed Medicare Privatization Experiment

[Lone_Star_Dem]

I read this some months back but thought in light of Obama's words tonight I'd share it here. We need to be able to negotiate drug prices for both Medicare and our military. The big pharma's are making fortunes off our tax dollars.

$806 Billion: The Real Cost of the GOP Failed Medicare Privatization Experiment

Medicare Part D (the Medicare prescription Drug Program), is the second Republican attempt at privatizing Medicare. Medicare Advantage was the first and this Program cost the American taxpayer 14% more than original Medicare.

Over the next 10 years, Medicare Part D will cost the American taxpayer a whopping $806 billion. (in contrast, Medicare Part A cost the American taxpayer nothing).

It was passed in 2003, by a Republican Congress. Representative Paul Ryan (the author of the current GOP privatization plan for Medicare) was one of its champions.

Before we look at how well or how poorly the program is working, let’s first look at why Republicans want to privatize Medicare. Extreme right wing Republicans do not believe there is any place for government in the role of its citizens, other than defense. They also believe that a “free market” place will keep costs down both for seniors and for the government. That is their ideological basis for “privatization.”

But there is a third and perhaps more critical reason for how and why Medicare Part D was established and that is, the power of the pharmaceutical industry in the United Sates over Congress. From 1998 through 2011, the pharmaceutical industry in the United States spent over $2.3 billion lobbying Congress. In addition, at least 25 former Congressman being paid multi-million dollar salaries to lobby Congress on behalf of the health care industry.

Now, let’s look at how Medicare part D works as a privatized version of Medicare.

Read more...http://www.seniorinfo4u.com/blog/featured-blog-posts/860-billion-the-real-cost-of-the-gop-failed-medicare-privatization-experiment/

A recent article about the rising cost of drugs for the military.

Soaring cost of military drugs could hurt budget

Last year, the Pentagon spent more on pills, injections and vaccines than it did on Black Hawk helicopters, Abrams tanks, Hercules C-130 cargo planes and Patriot missiles — combined.

Some of the prescription drugs that have fueled the military’s skyrocketing pharmaceutical budget are the same ones that have medicated the civilian world over the past decade. Since 2002, the Department of Defense has spent more than $5 billion on Lipitor, Plavix, Advair, Nexium and Singulair

<snip>

The details come from an unprecedented American-Statesman analysis of nearly every individual drug purchase made by the Department of Defense since 2002. The paper’s analysis also showed that many drug manufacturers saw their revenue from military sales soar over a decade that featured two wars and a large influx of beneficiaries covered by Tricare, the military’s health program.

They were led by giant Pfizer, with more than $8 billion in sales from the Department of Defense since 2002. Abbott’s sales jumped nearly 300 percent and Novartis more than doubled its military sales to around $400 million in 2011, according to data provided by the military.

http://www.statesman.com/news/news/national-govt-politics/the-soaring-cost-of-military-drugs/nThwF/

[elleng]

1. ABSOLUTELY.

Any sane program would include such, like Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan.

[Faryn Balyncd]

2. This is an importantant article....Thanks for the link.