Yesterday the CDC reported that life expectancy rose faster and death rates declined faster last year than in the past 30 because of new medicines. This bodes well for those getting the Medicare drug benefit in record numbers. But meanwhile Families USA wants to shove seniors into a VA style plan that limits access to these new medicines. Limiting access to new drugs and keeping them off formulary is a form of rationing and way to keeping formulary closed, ,which itself is a bargaining tool for driving down drug costs. In fact a study by Columbia University’s Frank Lichtenberg shows that the VA drug lag has actually increased death rates and reduced life expectancy among seniors. This is what is going on in the UK by the way where breakthrough by breakthrough the government is finding ways to say no to drugs for cancer, Alzheimer’s, MS and diabetes that increase life expectancy and quality of wellbeing. The justification of the VA and UK are similarly and depressingly striking. Actually studies show that limiting access drives up total costs and makes seniors sicker. Why would Families USA want that? Perhaps their hatred of drug companies outweighs their concern for the lives of seniors. Ron “The Godfather” Pollack the Don of Families USA wants everyone to believe that the VA just hands the off formulary medicines like candy after a friendly sort of negotation. Not so. Even the non-formulary drugs have to be discounted by at least 40 percent or you can’t get them. Getting on the formulary costs even more. So if you are biotech company that makes no money what incentive do you have to even try? No wonder the VA drug lag is growing and seniors are suffering as a result. Imagine if this little drill was applied to Medicare as a whole just like the Godfather wants?

Here’s an editorial from the Rocky Mountain News. That fresh mountain air certainly produces some clear-headed thinking.

Don’t target ads in drug-buying bill
Bill has one good idea, and one very bad one

Is Senate Bill 1 right for Colorado? If it did nothing more than let the state join a purchasing pool that cuts Medicaid drug spending, we would be inclined to say yes.

But to again paraphrase the TV ads, SB 1 has some serious side effects. The most dangerous is an onerous disclosure provision that would force drug companies to spend money defending their advertising budgets rather than, say, producing life-saving treatments.

If the disclosure requirement remains in SB 1, which is scheduled for a Senate vote today, we urge Gov. Bill Owens to veto the bill should it ever reach his desk.

That would be an unfortunate necessity if proponents of SB 1 are right: They say the state could save $20 million of $170 million it is spending on Medicaid drugs this year.

That may be an exaggeration. State health officials suggest the savings would be more like $3 million to $4 million. Still, that’s real money.

Under the bill, the state department of health policy would join a purchasing pool with other states to buy drugs for Medicaid recipients. People who earn too much to get Medicaid (up to $50,000 for a four-person household) but do not have medical insurance or whose policies do not pay for prescriptions could join the pool for $25 a year and purchase drugs at the discounted rate.

We supported a somewhat similar bill last year that Owens vetoed. We oppose SB 1, however, because of its inexplicable disclosure requirements, which could have been written by Ralph Nader. Asserting that advertising and lobbying leads to “an inordinate and unnecessary escalation of the cost of prescription drugs to consumers,” the bill would force every pharmaceutical company to detail its marketing budget to the state.

Every year, each drug maker would have to list promotions directed toward “any physician, medical student, hospital, nursing home, pharmacist, health benefit plan,” etc. We’re guessing that would include an accounting for the pens pharmaceutical reps hand out to receptionists.

They would also have to report all gifts worth more than $50, and naturally, how much they spend on lobbying, and who got the money.

Why? The Naderite left has long claimed that recent advances in medical science are mainly an illusion. Instead, drug companies largely repackage similar formulations and use promotional gimmicks to hoodwink doctors into prescribing new medications their patients don’t need.

Tell that to the arthritis patient who lives a relatively normal life because she can take Celebrex rather than megadoses of aspirin, or the diabetes sufferer who can test his own blood sugar with a pocket monitor.
It’s the business of shareholders and corporate boards to decide how much money a company spends on promotion and marketing. Lawmakers and bureaucrats should butt out.

Besides, if drug makers were forced to satisfy elaborate disclosure mandates, that would divert their focus from healing people — which is why, in its current form, SB 1 offers the wrong diagnosis.

I should also point out, in light of all the positive media surrounding the STAR study, the absurdity of Lilly having had to cop a plea and pay a $36,000,000 fine (“equitable disgourgement” indeed!) for allegedly disseminating information about the utility of Raloxifene “too soon.”

Too soon? For whom? Certainly not for patients, their spouses, children, extended families and friends. Certainly not for … doctors?

In the meantime, those who don’t find out about this important information today — or remember it for the year or so it’ll take for the supplemental application to be approved — won’t have the benefit of this very important (let alone newsworthy) information.

Something to ponder next time a pundit or politician pontificates on the need to further restrict the communication of health care information.

“Americans United” is a labor and Democrat party funded front group and they are wrong on the facts to boot. Why is there no caveat about where they get their funding at the end of their editorial in today’s USA Today? (See below.)

The design of the drug plan is exactly the same as that designed by President Clinton and supported by Families USA and the Democrats in 1999. How do they explain being for the drug plan before being against it? As for officials not wanting you to know about the enrollment breakdown, it’s right there on the damn HHS website, press release, etc. You would have to be an idiot not to see it … or Brad Woodhouse.

Actually there were 11 million seniors that lacked drug coverage before the program and 8.3 million have voluntarily signed up. My math puts me at 75 percent and we are not at May 15. 70 percent have reaped savings. that’s another way of saying 30 percent have not yet. As for the donut hole, guess what, a large chunk of seniors won’t hit it and those that will have actually purchased coverage that fills it.

The stand alone plans are not perfect. I would like to see drugs used to prevent disease and reduce spending overall in that fashion and you might need integrated health plans for that. But to suggest that the plan is corrupt is baseless beyond belief and comical considering Americans United were going to stoke the fires of resentment about the plan according to Democrat memo….Worse, to propose price controls as a panacea is simply being reduced to having no other message. Forcing biotech firms most of whom have piled up hundreds of milions of dollars of losses to sell half their medicines sold worldwide at the VA price (40 percent below wholesale) will be possible without destroying innovation or denying seniors access to breakthrough medicines is either delusional or writing for Americans United or a labor front group..oh wait that’s the same thing.

17 April 2006 USA Today - By Brad Woodhouse

The Medicare prescription drug program is costly, confusing and corrupt, and it has left millions of Americans to conclude that President Bush and Congress designed the plan with pharmaceutical and health insurance companies in mind, not seniors.

Medicare Part D is so hopelessly flawed that the enrollment deadline of May 15 must be extended to give Congress time to fix this debacle.

The deadline also must be extended to give people more time to sign up without penalty. It would be immoral to penalize seniors and the disabled for their failure to sign up for a plan that should have never been this difficult and confusing in the first place.

The Bush Administration claims that roughly 29 million Americans of the 42 million who are eligible have enrolled. What officials don’t want you to know is that almost three-quarters of those enrolled — some 21 million Americans — were dumped into Part D automatically. Only about half of those eligible for Part D who can voluntarily enroll have done so.

The reasons are clear: cost and confusion. A recent Washington Post/ABC News poll found that more than one in every three Americans who have enrolled reported that they have realized no savings — and when many begin to fall into the infamous “doughnut hole,” that figure is sure to rise.

In addition, millions of Americans have been deterred from enrolling because of the maze of confusion that has been a staple of the prescription drug plan. With more than 500 plans nationally, each with different premiums, co-pays and formularies — all of which are subject to change — it is little wonder that so many have yet signed up.

The fatal flaw in this law is that it prohibits Medicare from negotiating with pharmaceutical companies for lower prices, and from eliminating confusion by offering a simple and affordable plan to seniors directly from Medicare. The deadline must be extended so more people can sign up and so Congress can fix Part D to make it simple, affordable and guaranteed.

Brad Woodhouse is communications director for Americans United, an advocacy organization based in Washington