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Talks on drug benefit for seniors bog down
© St. Petersburg Times, WASHINGTON -- Senate negotiations on a prescription drug benefit for seniors broke down Wednesday after a White House official urged the senators to incorporate President Bush's ideas, which Democrats say are designed to kill any chances of passing a bill this year. Members of the Senate Finance Committee have been holding private meetings almost daily in recent weeks in an effort to develop a bipartisan compromise on legislation that would provide prescription drug benefits to Medicare patients. But Democrats balked when Bush economic adviser Mark McClellan showed up at Tuesday's meeting and urged them to adopt ideas that the president favors. McClellan told the St. Petersburg Times he went to the closed committee meeting at the request of Chairman Max Baucus, D-Mont. He said he did not propose any specific legislation but explained several principles Bush hoped would set a "framework" for the legislation. "There's no secret White House proposal," McClellan said. "We're not trying to draft legislation. We've been trying to work as best we can with all sides to get the president's principles into legislation." Bush's ideas were then incorporated into a legislative proposal unveiled Wednesday by three Republican committee members -- Sens. Chuck Grassley of Iowa, Olympia Snowe of Maine and Orrin Hatch of Utah -- as well as Democratic Sen. John Breaux of Louisiana and Independent Sen. Jim Jeffords of Vermont. Baucus and two other Democrats on the committee, Sen. Bob Graham of Florida and Jay Rockefeller of West Virginia, said the plan was unacceptable. Graham, at a news conference, described these developments as "a dark chapter in the effort to secure a prescription drug benefit for Medicare beneficiaries." Rockefeller added: "I think what the White House is trying to do is to create a drug benefit that will fall of its own weight." McClelland said White House officials view the proposal as "an encouraging step." But he added Bush will not endorse it until he has seen the details. "The details are important," he said. As Graham explained it, the proposal would spend more than $50-billion of the $318-billion in funds budgeted for prescription drug coverage on reorganization of the present Medicare program. That would leave only $250-billion for prescription drug benefits, which Democrats think is too little. Graham noted that his own proposal for a prescription drug benefit, which he first outlined last year, would commit all $318-billion to prescription drug coverage and would cost beneficiaries an average $52.80 a month in premiums. He said monthly premiums under the newer proposal would be considerably more than that. When asked at a news conference what their proposal would cost beneficiaries in monthly premiums, Grassley, Snowe, Hatch and Breaux said they had not calculated the costs. Their proposal would offer Medicare beneficiaries three optional choices, all with prescription drug coverage. The first would be identical to today's plan, the second would be a revamped government-run program and the third would be an HMO option similar to Medicare+ Choice.Baucus said the proposal based on Bush's ideas "amounts to robbery, not reform" because it would charge different premiums to seniors who receive the same benefits. "It is not what seniors say they want from Congress," he said Baucus said that plan would not even be considered when the Finance Committee sits down to draft a bill in September. Nevertheless, he added he hoped that the committee could return to a bipartisan approach to drafting a bill. "I hope we can recover from this," Baucus said. In an apparent effort at conciliation, White House press secretary Ari Fleischer issued a statement Wednesday night saying Bush "remains committed to working with" all of the factions on the Senate Finance Committee "to bring better Medicare coverage, including a prescription drug benefit, to seniors while strengthening Medicare's long-term financial security." Perhaps the only thing that all members of the Senate Finance Committee seemed to agree on Wednesday was the need to enact a prescription drug benefit this year. They noted that if the task is delayed until 2002, it likely will not be accomplished because of the political pressures imposed on Congress by a mid-term election. "If we don't enact this legislation this year," said Snowe, "we are all going to be painted with the broad brush of failure." Bush first outlined his principles for Medicare reform in a speech in the Rose Garden on July 12, when he also unveiled his plan to create a government-supported prescription drug discount card for low-income seniors. In essence, that plan would simply standardize the discount cards that are already offered by some drug companies and groups such as AARP.
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