A Tumor at the Heart of Medicare
Medicare Part D
the prescription benefit that went into effect three years ago
was supposed to let the elderly get their medicines more cheaply
by creating competition between private insurers
…But the cost to taxpayers
has been 3.5 times the market value of those prescriptions
…Legislation was pushed
paid for and effectively drafted by thousands of lobbyists
Proposals requiring the government
to use the buying power of 40 million Medicare patients
to negotiate prescription prices
were defeated
…So prices under Medicare private insurance plans
for the top 10 medications shot up
…At sites like www.maplight.org
you can see whose campaigns have gotten the plushest contributions
Mark Lange
New York Times
Why wouldn’t the healthcare industry’s position
as a top political campaign contributor
correlate to subsidized healthcare
being one of the government’s largest expenditures
and if not, why does the healthcare industry
contribute so much to those who wouldn’t reduce profits?
Why are the United States and New Zealand
the only developed countries who permit pharmaceutical companies
to market directly to consumers
how much could the media industry lose if drug advertising was illegal
and why isn’t prescription promotion a political issue?
Does America’s healthcare industry maintain high profit margins
by providing superior care and/or medicine
or by financing the political process with profits provided by patients?
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