Medicare :: Bush would veto Medicare drug price negotiation

US President Bush would veto legislation requiring the government to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices under Medicare. The House is to debate and vote on the bill on friday.

Government interference impedes competition, limits access to lifesaving drugs, reduces convenience for beneficiaries and ultimately increases costs to taxpayers, beneficiaries and all American citizens alike, and competition already “is reducing prices to seniors, providing a wide range of choices and leading to a more productive environment for the development of new drugs.”

Several Democrats campaigned last fall as critics of the two-year-old program that offers prescription drug coverage under Medicare, saying it tilted too heavily toward profits for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.

Currently, private drug plans negotiate how much they’ll pay for the medicine their customers take. But the legislation under consideration would require the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to do so.

“It is clear Medicare can do better and we are insisting that they do so,” said Rep. John Dingell, R-Mich., the bill’s author.


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