Danger Looms Over Medicare

The Impeachment absurdity—a grotesque display of raw partisanship—has corrupted the national debate. The Democrats and their allies in the resistance media have manipulated the public discourse to ignore critical issues affecting the national well-being. Trump derangement syndrome (TDS) has created a general neglect by Congress and the media of the important issues touching the lives of real Americans in real time.

Drug prices—the high cost of prescription medicines—is a topic that crosses ideological lines. Democrats, Republicans, conservatives, and progressives all care about health care, and it’s been the top issue in the presidential campaign over the past year. However, Americans, including elected officials, are baffled over what to do about it.

According to Gallup, one in three Americans say health care (35%) will be extremely important to their 2020 vote. For most Americans, their 2020 presidential vote hinges on health care policy—81% of Americans say that health care is very/extremely important for the 2020 election.

However—with the massive distraction of the Impeachment farce—when it comes to health care policy, not enough attention is given to the myriad bad ideas coming out of Washington from both the political left and right.  

For instance, on the left, Democrats are pushing for the federal government to negotiate with the pharmaceutical industry over prescription drug prices in Medicare Part D. Sounds reasonable. Why shouldn’t the federal government use its power and market position to fix prices in the Part D drug program? However—and it’s a huge however—governments do not negotiate; governments dictate.

Look at the national health systems in the UK, Canada, Cuba, et al.—governments set prices at the expense of access and innovation. The only people who are happy with these government-run health care systems (in the UK or Canada or Cuba) are healthy people. The sick are denied care, and the therapies and medicines that Americans take for granted are not available in government-run, nationalized health systems.   

The Democrats call for government negotiation ignores several plain truths about the Medicare Part D program. Established in 2003 through the Medicare Modernization Act (MMA), Part D is enormously popular and covers more than nine out of 10 seniors with comprehensive drug coverage. What’s more, seniors are paying less than predicted for their coverage. Part D works—it works because competition and negotiation already exist in the program. In fact, private-sector negotiation is the secret sauce as to why the program is so successful. The Part D drug plans negotiate discounts directly with drug companies.

Nancy Pelosi is not offering up negotiation to make medicines more affordable. No, what she is really selling—and the American people shouldn’t buy it—is government interference in a health care program that enjoys overwhelming approval among America’s seniors. Government interference in Medicare Part D will destroy a popular, successful drug program over myopic politics and ideological dogma.

Where the Left has its sights set on the popular Part D drug program. The right is targeting Medicare as well. On the right—specifically the Trump Administration—the proposal is a price setting scheme that will endanger patients covered under Medicare Part B. The irony here is that the Trump Administration has acknowledged that foreign price controls are a threat to American medical innovation.

As the Galen Institute’s Doug Badger has written here in RealClearHealth, “the Trump administration has made important progress in loosening the federal government’s grip on private health insurance, freeing up more options for affordable health insurance. But the administration has veered off this free-market track with its recent proposal to, among other things, slap a form of imported price controls on a specific class of prescription drugs in Medicare.”

President Trump is proposing a dangerous experiment with the lives and health of Americans covered under Medicare Part B. The core of the president’s plan is to set rates based off a calculation using “a basket of prices” from foreign countries that are “economically similar to the U.S. to effectively import their price controls on these medicines. The Center for Medicare and Medicaid Innovation (CMMI) will administer the program through demonstration projects .... This new International Pricing Index (IPI) model for Medicare Part B drugs will be based on the average price paid for these drugs in the U.K., France, Greece, and 11 other countries to develop a target price.”

The threat to the health of American patients is based on the reality that these foreign governments set the prices for medicines and pharmaceutical therapies, and access to certain medicines—especially new products—is strictly limited. Medical therapies that we take for granted in the U.S. are not available on the government-set formularies in these 14 countries. And, consequently, will no longer be available for Americans under Medicare Part B. This policy—as good intentioned as it may be to deal with drug prices—will be devastating to the health of American patients.   

A coalition of nearly 60 conservative policy and advocacy organizations published a letter this week addressed to the Secretary of Department of Health and Human Services, Alex Azar, in opposition to the IPI payment model for drugs administered under Medicare Part B because it imports foreign price controls. Price controls are not the answer to what ails our health care system. Government interference and rate-setting will not increase access to medicines at lower costs. In fact, price controls are a threat to medical progress and to the purpose of delivering the right medicine to the right patient at the right time (and at the right price).

Whenever government interferes unnecessarily in our health care system it creates more problems than solutions. Have we forgotten the unmitigated disaster of Obamacare? Washington should tread lightly on proposals to interfere in both Medicare Parts D and B because people’s lives and health are at stake.

Congressional Democrats and our national media have wasted enough time trying to undo the 2016 election. Finish up this Impeachment mockery and get back to work for the American people; and work together with this president to deal with the challenges of high drug prices. What Congress (and the administration) has come up with as of today won’t work. In fact, it will hurt. Throw it out and start again.

Put politics aside for solutions. We’ve done it in the recent past: the 2003 MMA is a perfect example of bipartisan compromise that resulted in good health care policy that fused together a public sector/private sector partnership that is a model for health care reform moving forward. We know the answers to the test—it’s the Medicare Modernization Act.  

Let’s see if Washington can shake its TDS and work with President Trump for the good of all the American people regardless of their political persuasion.

Jerry Rogers is the founder of Capitol Allies and the host of “The Jerry Rogers Show” on WBAL NewsRadio. Twitter: @CapitolAllies.