EDITORIAL
Bush pulls plug;
Oregon plan DO A
Nearly three years of work went down the drain
last Monday when the Bush administration denied Or
egon the necessary funding to carry out its proposed
revolutionary health-care reform package.
The Oregon Plan would have extended Medicaid
benefits to 120.000 people, and required employers to
provide health-insurance coverage for another 300,000.
The plan' would have guaranteed coverage for 587 (out
of 709) medical procedures. The 122 omitted proce
dures included diseases that would disappear without
treatment, respond to home treatment or the final
stages of terminal illness.
Louis Sullivan, secretary of the U.S. Department of
Health and Human Services, rejected the plan because
it allegedly violated the Americans with Disabilities
Act. The basic premise of Sullivan's reasoning was that
sick people are disabled, and denying protection to
sick people based on their prognosis rather than their
income is denying protection to the disabled, and
therefore is a violation of the ADA.
Huh?
Suliivan ignored the fact that under current guide
lines, sick people arc discriminated against based upon
their ability to pay. not on their illness. The Oregon
Plan would have discriminated against no particular
class of people. Currently, only people who are in the
bottom-half of the poverty level art; eligible for public
health assistance, leaving the upper-half of the poverty
stricken without any medical care whatsoever.
For example, an AIDS patient who lives iust below
the poverty line, currently would be ineligible for pub
lic assistance. Under the Oregon Plan, that patient
would receive aggressive treatment until the final
stages of the disease, at which time the treatment
would be discontinued. However, the state would con
tinue to pay for hospice care, ensuring that the patient
lived as comfortably as possible until death.
How the Oregon Plan discriminates any more than
the current system is unclear. Because AIDS is classi
fied as a disability under the ADA, and the Oregon
Plan would terminate futile treatment based upon
prognosis only during the final stages of the disease,
the plan would basically violate the ADA, but it would
provide more care than is currently available.
The Oregon Plan is not the perfect solution, but it
is the closest thing to a responsible, pragmatic ap
proach to allocating finite health-care resources that
this country has ever seen. Perhaps, come January, the
plan can be resubmitted to a president who actually
gives a damn. Until then, we must live with George
Bush's health-care plan, the extended, verbose version
of which reads: Don’t get sick.
Oregon Daily
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Emerald
Ethnic “cleansing"
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HOQOW HQLlD bo IT
COMMENTARY
Americans overcharged for drugs
By Ron Pollack
Americans like to think of
ourselves as wise con
sumers. VVu shop and
compare, clip and save and buy
on sain Yet we're paying a
whole lot mom for the same old
medications
We're getting a raw deal
when you compare what we're
charged with what Europeans
and Canadians pay for the same
drugs.
The U S. Senate Special
Committee on Aging found
that, between 1980 and 1990,
the price of prescription drugs
shot up almost throe times as
fast as prices in general The
committee, chaired by a real
consumer advocate — Senator
David I’ryor from Arkansas —
found that while general infla
tion drove other prices up 58
percent, drugs skyrocketed 152
percent!
Your local pharmacist Isn't
gelling rich on these price in
creases. The drug manufactur
ers are The big drug companies
reap profits three times as high
as other big corporations.
Drug companies say they
need the money for research
and development. But tho
shocking fact is that drug com
panies spend a billion dollars
mom on lobbying and advertis
ing every year than on ro
sea rch!
To really get a perspective on
how badly inflated American
prescription drug prices are.
just comparo thorn with drug
prices in other countries. The
Italian Pharmaceutical Manu
facturers Association found
that Americans pay more than
throe times as much as the av
erage European pays for pro
scription drugs
One example is Ativan. This
prescription drug is made in
tho United States, but Senator
Pryor's investigation found tho
average U S. price for 100 one
mg, tablets was $48.96. In Can
ada. the average price was
$7.18.
Tylenol with codeino was
also vastly more expensive In
the United States than in (Cana
da.
The fact is, the drug compa
nies aro simply overcharging
the American consumer, and
senior citizens are getting tho
worst of it Prescription medi
cation for senior citizens is of
ton a matter of life and death.
But many seniors just can’t af
ford to fill prescriptions on a
regular basis. Some older
Americans wind up skipping
pills, endangering their health
by taking their medicine loss
often than thoy'ro sup {rosed to.
Others cut down on food or
turn the heat way down to pay
for their medicine.
It is wrong that our parents
should have to face these hard
choices. The big drug compa
nies are making higher and
highor profits, while the olderly
cannot afford to buy the pre
scription drugs they need. For
older Americans — for all of us
—■ this is bitter medicine to
swallow.
Ran Pollack is executive di
rector of Families USA Founda
tion
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