Opinion Pieces Address Debate Over Medicare Prescription Drug Benefit

Several opinion pieces published today address the congressional debate over a Medicare prescription drug benefit. Summaries of the opinion pieces appear below.

• Akron Beacon Journal: As lawmakers debate a Medicare prescription drug, they must have "as keen a sense of the fiscal implications for the not-too-distant future as they have for the political reality," a Beacon Journal editorial says (Akron Beacon Journal, 6/11).
  
  
• Milwaukee Journal Sentinel: The Bush administration "made the right choice -- the practical one" by deciding to "abando[n] its ill-advised proposal for a two-tier drug benefit," according to a Journal Sentinel editorial (Milwaukee Journal Sentinel, 6/11).
  
  
• Minneapolis Star Tribune: Lawmakers should reject any Medicare reform proposal that requires beneficiaries to leave the traditional fee-for-service program to obtain a prescription drug benefit because "counting on the marketplace ... is likely to prove a disappointment," a Star Tribune editorial states. Rather, lawmakers should consider "subsidized benefits for low-income senior citizens and a stop-loss provision for those who have very high medication expenses," the editorial adds (Minneapolis Star-Tribune, 6/11).
  
  
• Tennessean: While the Medicare drug benefit proposal is "a step in the right direction," the "fine tuning and negotiating over the legislation will provide the real test" of whether members of Congress will "fail on this effort again this year," according to a Tennessean editorial (Tennessean, 6/11).
  
  
• USA Today: In their "zeal to push a popular program," legislators are "overlooking" the fact that Medicare is "careening toward financial disaster," a USA Today editorial states, adding that a prescription drug benefit should be passed only in connection with "tougher ... cost-saving" reforms to the program (USA Today, 6/11). In an opposing opinion piece, William Novelli, CEO of AARP, writes that Medicare is "an indispensable part of [U.S.] health care," and that "private-sector alternatives" as a means to cut the program's cost have been "seriously called into question" (Novelli, USA Today, 6/11).
  
  
• Wall Street Journal: In proposing an equal drug benefit for all Medicare beneficiaries, Republican lawmakers "are refusing to stand up for the free-market reforms they claim to believe in," a Journal editorial states. A "costly new entitlement with an over-regulated" private insurance option is "doomed to fail," the editorial adds, saying that Congress should instead offer a prescription drug benefit "only as part of an integrated insurance plan" (Wall Street Journal, 6/11).
  
  
• Robert Goldberg, Washington Times: The Medicare prescription drug benefit proposal now under consideration would "not solve the problem of seniors who are truly unable to purchase a prescription because of cost," but would "strengthen the control of government to decide which medicines people should get" and "largely benefit increasingly wealthier seniors and corporations eager to toss their retirees into a taxpayer-supported system," Goldberg, director of the Manhattan Institute's Center for Medical Progress, writes in an opinion piece (Goldberg, Washington Times, 6/11).