Quote:
Originally posted by smooth
I don't understand why, if the intention was to ease costs, the Republican party was adament against allowing cost controls or for seniors to purchase medication from non-US sources.
Whether seniors will actually benefit in the long-run from this is arguable, but even if they do it will be at great expense to taxpayers and huge benefits to Rx corps. The last part is the most troubling to me because we could have provided relief to seniors without shifting more money from the middle class to multinational corporations.
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There has been talk of allowing the purchase from non-US sources. Also, in many states which already offer help to seniors in the form of medication plans, this will allow them to offer their benefit to MANY more people. NJ is one such example. We already have a plan and this new plan will work in conjunction with it allowing them to shift the money we spend on those who will be covered by this to those that we can not cover. It's estimated that this will free up something on the order of a quarter billion dollars for NJ seniors.
On one hand you say that it's arguable that seniors will benefit and on the other you categorically state that it will be of huge benefit to the drug companies. It's too early to say either. The fact remains that retiree drug benefits are being discontinued at an increasing rate. Something needed to be done. This is a step in the right direction and may serve to save money in the long run by getting seniors on drugs that will prevent surgeries and hospital stays that Medicare would have been forced to cover had they not gone on drugs (like blood presssure meds and the like).
As far as cost controls, there are no cost controls for meds for the rest of the population, so it's unlikely that it would have passed the legislature with them in it.