Medicare

Last month, the Bush Administration began to spin that the Medicare prescription drug plan -- which does not allow Medicare to negotiate for lower drug prices -- was doing great because the private insurers were already negotiating for lower prices.

And this blog noted how the Change America Now! Campaign knocked down that spin.

This week, after a House committee requested the data from Bush's Medicare officials so it could find out how helpful those negotiations actually were for consumers, guess what?

They won't release the data.

Kaiser Network's Daily Health Care Report says Dem Rep. Henry Waxman and GOP Rep. Tom Davis requested the price data so they could determine what the discounts were and if the savings went to consumers or corporate bottom lines.

But Bush's Medicare Administrator Leslie Norwalk, who is pressing Congress to keep the ban preventing Medicare from negotiating, responded that she just can't tell them about it, claiming it would hurt the insurers' ability to negotiate.

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Most of the media saw today's report from the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services and concluded the headline was that overall health care spending continues to rise.

Not the Washington Post. It's headline? "Medicare Benefit Appears to Slow Spending Growth on Drugs".

And so, the W. Post continues its biased coverage about Medicare's prescription drug plan, supporting it's editorial board in opposition to empowering Medicare to negotiate for lower prices.

The W. Post dutifully transcribed what the Bush Administration told them:

Analysts said they expect to see that spending on prescription drugs rose more slowly in 2006 because of the Medicare Part D drug benefit that began last year. In the program, private insurers negotiate prices with drug companies as they compete to attract Medicare beneficiaries.

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Medicare's prescription drug benefit, it's working

-- Current TV ad from Big Pharma

[Rep. Henry] Waxman, chairman of the House Oversight and Government Reform Committee, laid out his health oversight priorities for the year at a Feb. 9 hearing, drawing a bull’s-eye on Medicare’s Part D drug benefit and the drugmakers and distributors in the program.

...

Citing a lack of transparency by drugmakers, pharmacies and insurers, Waxman said the current system “calls out for more fraud, and a harder job for those who are trying to protect the taxpayers.”

...

Witnesses at the Feb. 9 hearing said the government has failed to carefully monitor the cost of its drug programs, Part D in particular.

“Many government programs do not know the prices they pay for drugs,” said Gerard Anderson, professor of health policy and management at Johns Hopkins University. While beneficiaries of the plans can often find out their share of the cost for the drugs, Anderson explained, the government had little means to understand its costs.

Medicare’s private drug plans are required to report profit and pricing data to the Centers for Medicare and Medicaid Services (CMS), which is supposed to monitor for fraudulent activity.

-- CQ Today, 2/12/07

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President Bush's budget comes out next week, and today's NY Times headline says he wants "Big Medicare and Medicaid Saving". That means big cuts.

Cuts where?

Less money for middle-class kids in the Children's Health Insurance Program. (Here, the NYT uses White House-speak: "sharpen its focus on low-income families.")

Less money for middle-class seniors. ("The president’s budget would require more people to pay ... higher premiums.")

Less money for doctors and hospitals, while private HMOs make out just fine.

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