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Pharmaceuticals:

NLRC Opposes Medicare Rx Bargaining

Published on Thu Jan 13, 2005

Right-to-Life Agenda may be broader than you might think.

At a Jan. 24 press conference marking the anniversary of Roe v. Wade, National Right to Life Committee's Burke Balch said the organization intends to fight "price controls for prescription drugs in Medicare." That's a reference to efforts by many congressional Democrats and moderate Republicans such as Sen. Olympia Snowe (ME) to give the Health and Human Services Secretary power to negotiate with drug companies on behalf of Medicare's 40 million-plus seniors and disabled people.

"Medicare represents such a big portion of the drug market that negotiation in this context would really mean price-setting, which would reduce research and development funds needed to develop future medications," says Balch, who directs the NRLC's Robert Powell Center for Medical Ethics.

That, he argues, ties directly into one of the right-to-life movement's traditional concerns, euthanasia: "If the ability to develop new drugs for Alzheimer's disease and other ailments that particularly impact older people is drastically limited, the economic and social strains associated with the impending retirement of the baby-boom generation may in the not-too-distant future make the widespread imposition of active euthanasia on senior citizens with disabilities very hard to resist.

"Balch notes that the pro-life movement "successfully fought the premium price controls of the Clinton health plan in 1993-94, and for the right of older Americans to add their own money to the government Medicare contribution to get unrationed health care in the period 1995-2003." Because the Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 preserved that right, the NLRC scored a vote for the MMA as a pro-life vote on its legislative scorecard, according to Balch.

But what about issues that deal with access to life-saving drugs?

Speaking with MLR after the briefing, Balch said the NLRC would not lobby for raising taxes to pay for more drugs and other medical treatment for poor people because such policies wouldn't fly in today's political climate. Pragmatically, it's better to fight any proposed limits on what wealthier Americans may pay for their health care, thereby increasing the amount of money in the system and increasing the chance that cost-shifting will result in some of those funds helping the indigent, he said.

MLR asked Balch if his emphasis on pragmatism meant that, if Democrats returned to political prominence, the NRLC would fight for using large amounts of tax dollars to provide health care to the uninsured. His answer: "It's entirely possible."

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