Harry Reid, Crook for PhRMA, Tries to Kill Drug Reimportation

[flyarm]

Harry Reid, Crook for PhRMA, Tries to Kill Drug Reimportation
By: Jane Hamsher Friday December 11, 2009 6:08 am

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/12/10/harry-reid-crook-for-phrma-tries-to-kill-drug-reimportation/

snip:

The CBO says that drug reimportation would save the government $19 billion dollars, and the public $100 billion dollars. In reality, however, Jon Walker estimates it could be more like $400-$500 billion, if the reimported drugs pressure the price of US drugs down.
Sounds like a good thing, right? Except Harry Reid uses his control over procedure to do what Harry Reid wants to do. (Tell that fish story about “60 votes” and Joe Lieberman being the block to anything to someone else.) And what he wants to do is block Dorgan’s drug reimportation bill, and protect Obama’s PhRMA deal.

[TexasObserver]

1. Recommend

[Captain Hilts]

2. Don't forget PhRMA's conferences with the White House this summer. nt

[Stealth of Nations]

7. sorry im new, but I see nt alot, what does that mean?

[laughingliberal]

9. no text nt

[Stealth of Nations]

10. duh. that makes sense. thanks.

[flyarm]

3. CWA Slams Senate Health Care Bill: “Would Make our Health Care System Worse”

http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/12/09/the-public-... -“deal”-that-does-not-sound-like-it-is-even-a-deal-yet/
Public Option “Deal” Does Not Yet Sound Like It is Even a Deal
By: Jon Walker Wednesday December 9, 2009

What is in this deal that might not be a deal? The answer is that I don’t really know, and it seems like most of the Democratic senators don’t even know yet.

Medicare Buy-In

It sounds like the vague outline of the deal includes an early Medicare buy-in for some subset of people between the age of 55-64. (Whether this is a buy in for Medicare or for Conrad’s fake Medicare is not yet determined.) It at least sounds like this program might not be just a temporary stopgap, and will start in 2011.

That buy-in option would initially be made available to some uninsured people aged 55-64 in 2011, three years before the exchanges open. For the period between 2011 and 2014, when the exchanges do open, the Medicare option will not be subsidized–people will have to pay in without federal premium assistance–and so will likely be quite expensive, the aide noted. However, after the exchanges launch, the Medicare option would be offered in the exchanges, where people could pay into it with their subsidies.

Remember, the exchanges, at first, will only be open to roughly 10% of Americans, so it is only a very small group of 55-64 year olds who would have the option of buying in to Medicare. With this provision, the devil really is in the details. It could be done well, or it could easily devolve into a worthless Medicare buy-in in name only.


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CWA Slams Senate Health Care Bill: “Would Make our Health Care System Worse”

http://workinprogress.firedoglake.com/2009/11/20/cwa-sl... /

CWA Slams Senate Health Care Bill: “Would Make our Health Care System Worse”


By: Michael Whitney Friday November 20, 2009

The Communications Workers of America just put out a statement hitting the Senate health care bill, specifically slamming the regressive excise tax on health care plans. Their statement (emphasis mine):

The Senate bill’s proposal to tax health care benefits would make our health care system worse, not better. This new tax, which is opposed by the majority of Americans, would affect millions of families. Average families who clearly don’t have “Cadillac” health care plans would owe thousands of dollars in new taxes.

Taxing health care benefits is a bad public policy that would hit millions of families hard as employers cut back health care benefits to avoid the tax. The idea that this tax will curtail rising premiums is just wrong.

CWA supports health care reform that is fairly financed, and the House bill has a better approach. It fully funds health care reform by making large employers pay toward their workers’ coverage, adding a modest surtax on the wealthiest Americans and including a public option.

CWA will work with Senate Majority Leader Reid and other Senators to produce a bill that will provide the real health care reform that working and middle income families deserve.

Those are strong words from one of the country’s most influential unions, going beyond the AFL-CIO’s tepid praise and SEIU’s lauding of the Senate for the bill. CWA was part of an ad pushed by AFL-CIO member unions last month hitting the same excise tax in the Senate Finance Committee bill, but appears to have gone one step further than other major unions with this statement.


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Public Option Grand Compromise Becomes A Grand Big Nothing
By: Jon Walker Tuesday December 8, 2009
snip;
For starters, the Medicaid expansion has completely been dropped, even though it would have been a big money saver for the government:

This afternoon, Jay Rockefeller said that the new proposal to expand Medicaid coverage for those who are 133% to 150% above the federal poverty line was dropped during a meeting of key legislators this morning. “I was sad this morning,” Rockefeller told me and a few other reporters. “We walked in, and it was 133 to 140, then it’s staying at 133… So we didn’t get anything.”

Now we are getting reports that the Medicare buy-in is not really a buy-in. . . or really Medicare. Senators are looking at restricting the Medicare buy-in so completely that it will be an option for almost no one. It will likely only be for a very tiny segment of poor and very unhealthy 55-64 year-olds:

Negotiators are considering limiting consumers to those who would qualify for high-risk insurance pools already set up under the Senate’s health care legislation. This would mean primarily those who have been uninsured for a certain amount of time, have a history of poor health or are unable to get insurance because of a preexisting condition.

Adding insult to injury, the “Medicare” this tiny fraction of people could buy in to might end up not even really being Medicare:

Conrad said that he’d propose having the Medicare buy-in be treated as “a separate pool” that could have negotiated rates, rather than those set by the existing Medicare program.


http://fdlaction.firedoglake.com/2009/12/08/public-opti...

[Blue Owl]

4. Harry Reid and Joe Lieberman in charge of health care...

***shudder***

[flyarm]

5. I Can Believe It’s Not Medicare: Schumer, Baucus “Fixing” Buy-In Plan

I Can Believe It’s Not Medicare: Schumer, Baucus “Fixing” Buy-In Plan
By: Jon Walker Friday December 11, 2009 7:45 am

Allowing younger people to buy into Medicare sounds like a good idea. Medicare is a well-run and cost-effective program. The problem is that the latest reports indicate this “Medicare buy-in” idea might not really be Medicare at all, it might in fact be fake Medicare:

Sens. Chuck Schumer (D-N.Y.) and Max Baucus (D-Mont.) said efforts were under way to address concerns raised by senators, including the low reimbursement rates for hospitals and doctors.

“All of the problems that people have mentioned, we are mindful of,” said Schumer, who worked to develop the package with 10 moderate and liberal senators. “Every one you have mentioned has been brought up in our discussions, and we didn’t ignore any of them.”

snip: as per DU rules:

This change would result in this fake Medicare program having much higher premiums and a smaller provider network. It would also result in greater administrative overhead. This fake Medicare would lack almost all the benefits of Medicare. A Medicare buy-in program that does not actually allow people to fully buy into real Medicare is a farce. Beware: it looks like we are about to get fake Medicare for Christmas.

[ThomThom]

6. I don't understand this re-importation thing.

Just regulate them here and make them sell at fair prices. If they are American companies why do they rip-off their neighbors? What can be done about the greed of American businesses? We must draw a line between them and our Congress. We have the best Congress money can buy.

[Stealth of Nations]

8. true but...

this WILL help. the ammendment as I read it says something like a 2.5% cap on additonal fees that can be charged. So if Lipitor is being sold for $100 per unit in Canada the most a distributor could charge by law is the price + 2.5%. so now internet companies for example could find the country who charges the least and sell direct to consumer for significantly less than current rates, sometimes 3 to 4 times cheaper.