What Republicans want to repeal....

Way to go Debbie.....

From Think Progress:

WASSERMAN-SCHULTZ: The Republicans will take away a 50 percent cut in brand name drugs that seniors got…it will mean that children and in a few years everyone will be dropped or be denied coverage for the pre-existing condition that they might have. It will mean that young adults will no longer be able to stay on their parents’ insurance until they’re 26. …. What we’re going to do is put insurance companies and profit-driven decision making back in the driver’s seat, instead of decision making between doctors and their patients.
PRICE: That’s the kind of policy that was rejected on November 2nd.
WASSSERMAN-SCHULTZ: Really? Really? You think that people want insurance companies, Tom. You think that Americans want insurance companies to make decisions about whether or not they get coverage for a pre-existing condition? That is absolutely not what November 2nd was about.

Sen. Byron Dorgan Hopes To Blow Up Deal With Big Pharma

A Senate Democratic leader is hoping to blow up the deal reached between the White House, drug makers and Senate Finance Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.), by introducing an amendment on the floor to allow prescription drugs to be re-imported from Canada.

It's one of the simplest ways to reduce health care costs but was ruled out by the agreement, which limits Big Pharma's contribution to health care reform to $80 billion over ten years.

North Dakota Sen. Byron Dorgan, a member of Democratic leadership, isn't a party to that bargain. "Senator Dorgan intends to offer an amendment to the health reform bill and his expectation is that it will be one of the first amendments considered," his spokesman Justin Kitsch told HuffPost in an e-mail. "Prescription drug importation is an immediate way to put downward pressure on health care costs. It has bipartisan support, and has been endorsed by groups such as the National Federation of Independent Businesses and AARP."

U.S. patients pay far more than the rest of the world for prescription drugs. The Canadian government keeps prices down by using its purchasing power to negotiate for lower rates. Dorgan wants American consumers in on the deal.

A bill to allow re-importation -- S. 1232 - has 30 cosponsors, several Republicans among them, including Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins of Maine, John Thune (S.D.) and David Vitter (La.).

The Congressional Budget Office estimates that the bill would result in $50 billion in direct savings over the next decade, with $10.6 billion of that being savings to the federal government.

Read it all at Huffington Post

Too Poor to Make the News

What are the stations between poverty and destitution? Like the Nouveau Poor, the already poor descend through a series of deprivations, though these are less likely to involve forgone vacations than missed meals and medications. The Times reported earlier this month that one-third of Americans can no longer afford to comply with their prescriptions.

Read More at the NYTimes.com

Murder by Spreadsheet

Sen. Chuck Grassley (R-Iowa) slipped out the door of an overcrowded
and overheated markup on a Democratic-backed prescription drug bill
late Thursday night.

While he conferred with an aide, a pharmaceutical lobbyist sidled up
to the ranking Republican. The lobbyist pressed Grassley about the
filibuster intentions of Senate Minority Leader Mitch McConnell (R-Ky.)
and whether fence-sitters in his party, such as Sen. Lindsey Graham of
South Carolina, might defect to the Democrats. Grassley said he didn't
know.

The exchange illustrated the pharmaceutical lobby's wavering
confidence in the bill's future. Pharmaceutical lobbyists trained their
focus on the Senate floor this week as Senate Majority Leader Harry
Reid (D-Nev.) introduced the bill Tuesday. The bill, which Finance
Committee Chairman Max Baucus (D-Mont.) filed Friday, seeks to tweak
Medicare's prescription drug plan.

Lobbyists raised a few eyebrows when the Senate Finance
Committee scheduled the markup for the bill late Thursday, at 6:40 p.m.
Nonetheless, they packed the cramped committee room. Several lobbyists
paid placeholders, some of whom started waiting before 11 a.m., to
secure prime spots for the standing-room-only markup.

From: www.politico.com

Insurer: Covering drugs during Medicare gap too costly

The gap in Medicare's prescription drug coverage is looking deeper.

For the second time in two years, a major insurer that covered brand-name drugs in the "doughnut hole" has said it's losing money on the drug plan and pulling it off the market at the end of the year.

As a result, seniors who depend on costly medications to treat chronic or serious illnesses are left to wonder, again, where to turn for comprehensive drug coverage next year.

Democrats' Drug Price Bill Blocked in Senate

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - A bill that would let the U.S. government negotiate prices for Medicare prescription drugs stalled in the U.S. Senate on Wednesday when Republican opponents blocked a vote on the legislation.

Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid fell five votes short of the 60 needed to end a Republican filibuster and move to a vote on the bill. A filibuster is a tactic for delaying or obstructing legislation by making long speeches.

Democrats said they were not giving up on the bill and would try again.