Bush aide nixes importing drugs from Canada

By Max Heuer

WASHINGTON, Sept. 10, 2002--The top health care advisor to President Bush Tuesday criticized importing cheaper prescription drugs from Canada, saying the idea is neither safe nor practical and touting the administration's own plan to lower the cost of prescription drugs.

"What seniors really need is a prescription drug bill. (Bush administration officials) don't see logistically how (importing drugs from Canada) is going to end up working," said Dr. Mark McClellan, a member of the White House Council of Economic Advisers.

But New Hampshire residents-the number is unknown-already have found a way to make it work through privately organized bus trips across the border.

"These are prescription drugs that are manufactured in the U.S. and approved by the FDA (the Food and Drug Administration). It makes perfect sense for seniors, and it makes perfect sense for state governments," said Pamela Walsh, press secretary for Gov. Jeanne Shaheen. Shaheen, a Democrat, is running for U.S. Senate this year.

New Hampshire prescription drug expenditures increased 17 percent in fiscal year 2001, costing the state's residents $88 million, according to a study by the Business for Affordable Medicine coalition.

About 147,796 residents of New Hampshire 65 or older, and none of them receive prescription drug coverage through Medicare, according to the New Hampshire Medication Bridge Program.

McClellan, however, dangled the Medicare+Choice plan - a program that fuses Medicare managed care plans with Medicare private fee-for-service plans - as the cornerstone to the administration's health plan for 2003 and an answer to low-income seniors' prescription drug questions.

According to McClellan, 90 percent of Medicare+Choice plan members have access to an "affordable" premium on prescription drugs or no premium at all.

HMOs have been dropping the program because of its cost. But the House Medicare bill, H.R. 4954, passed in July, would allot $3 billion to HMOs offering Medicare+Choice plans to seniors, according to Congress Daily, a publication that covers legislation on Capitol Hill.

The Senate failed to pass four Medicare bills before the August recess - including a tri-partisan effort co-sponsored by Sen. James M. Jeffords (I-VT). But McClellan expressed optimism that the Senate would take bipartisan action on Medicare in the coming weeks.

"I believe and hope there is a real chance for action," he said. "The administration is fully engaged in working with the Senate."

But McClellan put the final responsibility for passage on Senate leaders.

"We need the leadership in the Senate to enact improvements in
Medicare benefits," he said in a speech at the American Association of Health Plans conference.

"Seniors need access to what everyone else has in the private sector," he said.

Published in The Manchester Union Leader, in New Hampshire.