Category: Rhiannon Varmette
Michaud Introduces Federal Legislation Mirroring Maine Rx
WASHINGTON–Rep. Mike Michaud introduced his first substantial piece of legislation today – a bill modeled after a Maine law that would authorize the federal government to negotiate for lower medication prices for people without health insurance
Michaud said that his bill, America Rx, would require the Health and Human Services Department to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies for lower prescription prices for Americans who do not have health insurance or do not have prescription drug coverage in their insurance plan.
“Drug prices continue to spiral upward, forcing millions of Americans to choose between medicine and food, medicine and rent, medicine and heat,” Michaud said.
He said that his bill would not cost taxpayers money and probably would even mean money for the drug industry by opening up the prescription drug market to more people.
“Nationwide, there will be a lot of support for this legislation,” Michaud said. “The question is whether members of Congress will take it seriously.”
Rep. Tom Allen, a co-sponsor of America Rx, was also at the press conference to present the legislation with Michaud. There are 29 co-sponsors so far.
As a state senator, Michaud co-sponsored Maine Rx, which required the Maine Department of Human Services to negotiate prices with the drug producers, and threatened to punish those companies that did not negotiate with losing all or their Medicaid customers.
Maine Rx passed overwhelmingly in the state House and unanimously in the Senate but has been held up in the courts after the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, the industry’s lobbying group, challenged the legislation. The U.S. Supreme Court heard the case s still reviewing the case. Michaud’s bill does not include the provisions in the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers Maine law that have been challenged.
Michaud said he expects that America Rx would receive public and political support from both sides of the aisle, as the Maine Rx legislation did.
“A lot of people thought it was a crazy idea,” Michaud said. “But in a small state like Maine we were willing to try new ideas, to build bipartisan coalitions, to offer fresh approaches to very complex ideas.”
Under America Rx, pharmaceutical companies that decline to negotiate would lose their tax deduction for marketing and advertising.
“It’s a powerful incentive” for the pharmaceutical companies to do what they have already done with other countries, Allen said.
Michaud said that he hopes the legislation will pass and added that if it does, it would be unlikely to be held up by litigation, as Maine’s law has been.
Published in The Bangor Daily News, in Maine.
Michaud Campaign Finances Broke State Records
WASHINGTON--In his first run for Congress last year, Rep. Mike Michaud raised $1,187,462, more than any candidate ever brought in before in a District 2 House of Representatives race, according to the Federal Election Commission.
Michaud spent $1,178,398 to win his seat, and the national Democratic Party threw in about $800,000 more on his behalf, according to Rick Galena, the fundraising director for Michaud's campaign.
Michaud captured 52 percent of the vote in a race against Kevin Raye, a former aide to Sen. Olympia Snowe. Both parties poured money into the race for the seat vacated by Democrat John Baldacci, who was elected governor, as they tried to increase their numbers in a closely divided House.
Galena said the fundraising was as close and as difficult as the race itself.
"When they said how much money we had to raise, I laughed," Galena said. "I think we surprised a lot of people."
Galena said Michaud raised a large amount of money from core Democratic donors and supporters he met during two decades in the Maine legislature.
Eighty-five percent of Michaud's contributions came from Maine, Galena said.
Michaud, a former employee of the Great Northern Paper Mill, received about $300,000 from organized labor. Other union political action committees that contributed represented electrical workers, carpenters, ironworkers and food and commercial employees.
"We benefited greatly from our wide breadth of support from organized labor," Galena said. Michaud, he said, was "one of two or three actual card-carrying union members running. It's very uncommon for labor to be able to elect one of their own to such a high position."
Michaud's campaign finances were split closely between individual contributions and political action committees (PACs). Of the money donated by PACs, about half came from labor, 32 percent from interest groups that focus on single issues and 18 percent from business PACs, according to the Center for Responsive Politics, which monitors campaign contributions.
Some of the top contributors to Michaud's campaign were the American Federation of Teachers, the National Association of Credit Unions and the AFL-CIO.
Raye raised nearly as much as Michaud-$1,129,835-and spent almost as much as the winner--$1,116,770. Spokespeople for the Republican National Committee and the National Republican Congressional Committee declined to say how much the GOP spent on the race.
Because of campaign finance reform laws passed last year that restrict "soft money" -previously unlimited contributions to political parties - Michaud's fundraising strategy may change in his next election. The law is being challenged in court.
"We will be relying even more on individual contributions, everything from the person who can give $25 to the person who can give the maximum [now $4,000]," Galena said.
First-time candidates who won their races raised an average of $1,120,215 in the 2002 congressional races, according to the Center for Responsive Politics.. Michaud's campaign raised the second-highest amount, topped only by Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D-Md.), who raised $2,970,215 to topple Republican Rep. Connie Morella.
When Baldacci first was elected in 1994, he spent less then $400,000 on his campaign, according to the Federal Election Commission.
In other 2002 congressional races in Maine, Rep. Tom Allen - running for his third term in the District 1 House seat - raised $510,244, and Sen. Susan Collins - in a competitive race again Common Cause President Chellie Pingree - raised $4.3 million.
Published in The Bangor Daily News, in Maine.
Alaska Refuge Safe From Drilling, For Now
WASHINGTON--Senate Democrats, joined by a handful of Republicans, including Maine's Olympia Snowe and Susan Collins, attached an amendment Wednesday to the proposed budget for next year that would block an attempt by the Bush Administration to allow oil drilling in the Arctic National Wildlife Refuge (ANWR).
Senators pushing for ANWR drilling, including both Senators from Alaska, insisted that drilling in Alaska would generate enough oil to loosen U.S. dependency on foreign oil markets. They also said that drilling would generate thousands of jobs.
The legislators who supported the ban and voted for the amendment offered by Sen. Barbara Boxer (D-Calif.) argued that the environmental impact of Arctic drilling would not be worth the small amount of oil that the refuge could supply.
Snowe and Collins were among eight Republican senators who supported the Boxer amendment. The vote was 52-48. Vice President Dick Cheney made a special trip to Capitol Hill to make a last minute effort to convince wavering Republicans to vote against the amendment and for drilling.
"If we start drilling in ANWR, our largest remaining domestic oil reserve, we could do almost nothing to decrease our reliance on foreign oil," Collins said in a statement.
Collins called for a balanced energy policy that "protects the environment, increases energy efficiency and promotes renewable energy."
Snowe said in a statement that drilling for more domestic oil is not the best way to end U.S. dependence on foreign markets. Instead, she suggested, Congress should focus on legislation that sets new standards for fuel efficiency, such as the bill she introduced last month that would require SUVs and light trucks to meet the same fuel-efficiency standards as other cars.
"Our nation cannot rely on domestic oil production as the keystone of an energy
policy, given that the United States consumes 25 percent of the world's oil supply but produces just 3 percent of the world's oil supply," she said.
The ANWR fight isn't over yet, and the House still may take up the issue according to a spokesman for an environmental group opposing Alaskan oil exploration.
Dan Lavery of the Sierra Club said legislators who support drilling in the Arctic refuge have tried to attach the issue to bills on airlines and transportation safety and now to the budget, and are not likely to stop pushing.
The refuge is a 1.5-million-acre coastal plain, which is home to 130,000 caribou, 180 bird species, grizzly bears, wolves and many other animals, Lavery said, adding that drilling would be "devastating" to the wildlife in the area as well as the Native American tribes who live there.
"The most basic reason we're opposed to this legislation is that it's a six-month supply of oil that wouldn't be available for 10 years," Lavery said. "It's not part of a long-term energy solution."
Published in The Bangor Daily News, in Maine.
Rubber Footwear May be Insulated a Little Longer
WASHINGTON--As Congress considers opening more doors to foreign competition, Sen. Olympia Snowe is trying to protect domestic rubber footwear manufacturers, more than one-third of whose U.S. workforce is employed at New Balance factories in Maine.
The Senate Finance Committee approved legislation last week that would remove tariffs from footwear imported from the Caribbean. Snowe, along with Sen. Sam Brownback (R-Kan.), inserted an amendment into the bill that would keep tariffs intact on certain types of footwear, including athletic shoes like those produced at Maine's New Balance factories. About 1,000 workers are employed at the plants in Norridgewock, Norway and Skowhegan.
Snowe said in a statement that the committee action was a step in the right direction and "will help stem the erosion in the level of protection America provides for the endangered rubber footwear industry."
The Miscellaneous Tariff and Technical Corrections Act would add to the Caribbean Basin Initiative, enacted in 1983, which allowed duty-free trading of certain products. Originally, it excluded footwear.
Under the new legislation, most types of footwear from Caribbean countries could be imported duty-free.
"Without recognition that rubber footwear manufacturers are particularly sensitive to imports, the delicate balance in trade could have been upset - with serious consequences for Maine and other states that produce rubber footwear," she said.
Snowe said that 30 years ago, imports represented about 20 percent of sales in the rubber footwear industry. Today, she said, imports make up 95 percent of such sales. .
There are just 2,600 domestic rubber footwear jobs today, Snowe's statement said, only 10 percent of the number employed in 1973.
"Rubber footwear is a labor-intensive, import-sensitive industry in which the cost of labor represents about 40 percent of the overall cost," Snowe said. "As such, it is difficult for the industry to compete on a level playing field with imports from countries with lower labor costs.".
The average cost of a domestically made athletic shoe is $15.19, while the cost of the same type of shoe, imported, is $8.67, said Peter Mangione, president of the Footwear Distributors and Retailers of America.
"I don't believe the duties have any relevance to making shoes in the U.S.," Mangione said. "Imported products in this heading [rubber footwear], even after application of the duties, are drastically lower-priced than ones made locally."
Mangione said it would be better for consumers and make little difference to manufacturers if the duties were eliminated. He said that the duties - usually around 37 percent for footwear in general and 20 percent for rubber footwear - are too low to make a difference.
"If price were the determining factor, we wouldn't make any shoes locally…. Local products survive because of brand names, because of niche markets," he said, adding that New Balance can afford to produce domestically largely because half of its production is based overseas.
Katherine Shepard, a spokeswoman for New Balance, said that the tariffs are crucial for the company's domestic production.
"We're only able to continue manufacturing in the U.S. because of the tariff protection," she said. "It gives us a small assist, allowing us to come closer to the price of imported footwear."
Shepard said that although she believes the protection from the tariffs will not last indefinitely, the duties are important now because they allow New Balance a phase-out period in which to find other ways to be competitive with imports.
New Balance constantly works to upgrade its methods and technology, Shepard said, with the goal of still being able to compete in another 10 years when the tariff protections may be gone.
"The owners of New Balance are very passionate about manufacturing remaining in the U.S.," she said. "It's a feeling that we need to have a strong manufacturing base in this country for our security and to help our economy. Anything we can do… is very positive - not just for the company, but for the country."
New Balance has about 1,000 jobs in Maine, Shepard said.
Published in The Bangor Daily News, in Maine.
More Business for Bath in President’s Budget
WASHINGTON--President Bush's proposed budget allots $12.2 billion for shipbuilding, including money for Bath Iron Works to build three Aegis guided missile destroyers over the next two years.
The budget requests $3.6 billion, which would be split between Bath and Ingalls Shipbuilding in Mississippi, to construct six DDG-51 Aegis destroyers.
Bush's budget request "is heartening news that the Defense Department will work with Congress to address shipbuilding needs," Sen. Olympia Snowe, R-Maine, said in a statement.
"The Administration's reported funding increase for shipbuilding is very good news for the Navy, for our national security - and for Bath Iron Works," Snowe said.
Snowe's spokesman, Dave Lackey, said the senator had been frustrated in the past because of a lack of money for shipbuilding that she believes hurts not only Bath Iron Works, but national defense as well.
The total request for shipbuilding would represent a $2.7 billion increase from this year, and would be nearly three times the typical annual increase, Lackey said, adding that the usual increase of $1 billion annually keeps the Navy's fleet only at a standstill.
Lackey said that the budget request is important because it would provide stability to Bath Iron Works, which employs 6,500 people, for the next few years.
"Bath Iron Works has a significant impact in the midcoast area, as one of the state's largest employers," Lackey said. "What happens to Bath Iron Works has a ripple effect throughout the economy."
Kendall Pease, spokesman for Bath Iron Works' parent company, General Dynamics Corp., said that the increase in spending for shipbuilding is important to the company and to the country.
"The attempt of this budget to get to a better number of ships is saluted by not just the company but by anyone concerned with national defense," Pease said.
Pease said that the country's naval resources are being worn thin because the Navy is operating with fewer ships than are needed and the United States is sending naval vessels to the Persian Gulf and other areas.
Cynthia Brown, president of the American Shipbuilding Association, said that the Bush request is a step in the right direction but that even more aggressive shipbuilding is needed to maintain a strong Navy.
Brown said that over the last few years the government has provided funds for construction of five ships a year and that this new budget would allow for construction of seven ships.
The ideal would be for the government to fund construction of 10 ships each year, she said, adding that while there are 301 ships in the Navy now, there will be only 291 next year because of ships being decommissioned. Brown said that up to 15 ships a year are decommissioned.
"That means that the fleet is going to drop," Brown said, adding that the budget request represents " absolutely an improvement over last year."
The war in Afghanistan, she said, involved more than 60 Navy vessels transporting soldiers and supplies and 4,000 missiles fired from naval vessels in three months. She said that a war in Iraq would also rely heavily on the Navy.
"You cannot build a Navy to go to war. It takes three years to put each warship in the water. You have to have a standing Navy at all times or that fleet is not there when the gun goes off."
Published in The Bangor Daily News, in Maine.
Snowe, Collins Receive Messages Against War in Iraq
WASHINGTON--Organizers estimated that nearly 2,000 Maine residents called Washington Wednesday to deliver a message to Sen. Olympia Snowe, Sen. Susan Collins and the White House - "We don't want war on Iraq."
Phone calls to the Maine Republican senators were part of a "virtual march" on Washington, organized by the groups Win Without War and moveon.org, in which over 200,000 people registered to call, e-mail or fax their senators' offices and the White House and state their opposition to war with Iraq.
When registering for the virtual march, constituents had to write what they were expecting to say in their calls or faxes. Mainers' concerns included deaths of Iraqi civilians, money spent on war that the constituents say is needed at home and their belief that war with Iraq will "fuel the fire of terrorism."
"We used to be the good guys. I am dismayed that we have turned into the country most feared by the people of the world," read a comment.
A Boothbay resident said: "I am deeply concerned about the Bush administration's drive to war on Iraq. They have failed to convince the American public, our allies or me."
Hope Brogunier of Bangor talked to aides in Collins' office in Maine and told them, "I
believe that an invasion by us alone is unconscionable and would instigate more terror directed at us."
She said that she is frightened by the possibility of war and appalled that the United States would continue on a path to war without more support.
"This is a step in a direction that is egregious in terms of what this country has been. We could be associated, instead of protecting peace, with unleashing the law of the jungle," Brogunier said. "A really strong approach is a multilateral one, and we should use that strength to contain Iraq."
Brogunier said she took part in the virtual march because she feels that this issue deserves public accountability in the Senate.
"It was just another way of trying to get attention to how seriously I feel, along with so many other people, about what this administration is doing," she said.
With the phone lines clogged on Capitol Hill, many callers made numerous attempts and
still did not get through to all the offices.
"Thank goodness I have redial on my phone," said Linden Thigpen of South Portland.
Thigpen, a veteran peace activist who organized a women's anti-war group in Maine and marched last month in the anti-war rally in Washington, said it's important for the U.S. government and the world to know that many Americans are against war in Iraq.
"I think that at this point, everything that we can do is very important," she said, adding that if the United States goes to war, there would probably be more terrorist attacks.
Peter Schurman, executive director of moveon.org, said the large number of people who registered to "march" did not surprise him.
"We expected it. We know that the majority of Americans favor giving more time for the inspections," Schurman said.
Schurman said that with 140,000 people registered to make three calls each and another 80,000 faxing messages, that there would be a half a million such contacts by constituents Wednesday.
"We're making sure that every constituent has a chance to be heard," Schurman said. "It's a great way to let every senator know the depth of public opposition…. In Maine, more than 1,800 people have signed up to call."
The phone lines at both Snowe's and Collins' offices were clogged during much of the day, but the offices handled it well, according to the senators' spokespersons.
"We've been receiving a number of calls…, we listen to them, treat them with courtesy and take their point of view into consideration," said Dave Lackey, Snowe's spokesman.
Lackey said that the steady stream of calls was normal for an organized call-in effort and that Snowe always appreciates hearing from constituents so that she can sense what people in Maine feel on issues.
Senators Collins' Washington office had received 900 calls by the end of the workday, according to spokeswoman Megan Sowards.
Sowards said that while the calls were "mildly disruptive," there was staff on hand to answer them courteously.
"Senator Collins' position has always been that the use of force in Iraq ought to be the last resort," Sowards said. She said Collins "continues to hope that the situation can be resolved diplomatically."
Published in The Bangor Daily News, in Maine.
DAV Pushes Veterans Health Care in Washington
WASHINGTON--Hundreds of members of the Disabled American Veterans were here Tuesday as DAV national commander and Maine resident Edward Heath told members of Congress that the Veterans Affairs Department's medical system suffers from a steadily increasing shortage of resources.
Testifying at a joint hearing of the Senate and House Veterans' Affairs Committees, Heath stressed that many veterans, some severely disabled, are forced to wait a year or longer for medical attention and that the problem is only worsening as more veterans enter the VA system.
With more than six million veterans now in the VA system, Heath said around 200,000 wait six months or longer for medical treatment.
He said veterans' benefits are particularly important today, as one generation overflows into the VA system and the next is being deployed for a potential war.
"Today, another generation has been put in harm's way," Heath said. "Because we ask a great sacrifice of these men and women, our government must be prepared to care for them when they need it most."
He added, "A young man or woman injured in the war on terror will need the services of VA well into 2050, long after the guns fall silent and the memories of this war have faded from the minds of most Americans."
Heath pointed out that the number of veterans using the VA system jumped from 2.7 million in 1995 to 4.5 million in 2002, while during the same time period VA health care employee levels dropped from 205,000 to 183,700.
"Each year, the VA is forced to do more with less," Heath said.
President Bush's budget for fiscal year 2004 is asking for $2.1 billion more for VA health care, including new fees and higher co-payments, according to David Autry, deputy national director of communication for the DAV. But at least another $2 billion is needed beyond that, Autry said.
Rep. Mike Michaud, a member of the House Veterans' Affairs Committee, said in a statement released after the hearing that he supports making veterans' health care a mandatory component of the budget.
"Veterans have earned the right to VA health care as a continuing cost of national defense and security," Michaud, a Democrat, said. "We must keep the promise made by this country to the men and women who gave so much to keep our nation free."
Sen. Olympia Snowe, a longtime acquaintance of Heath, introduced him at the hearing and expressed concern about unprecedented waiting times for VA health care caused by budget shortfalls and rising medical costs.
"As one who has been on the 'front lines' for those who put themselves in harm's way in service to our nation, Ed knows as well as anyone that these are not abstract policy matters," Snowe, a Republican, said.
"They are genuine concerns in the everyday lives of our veterans," she added. "Our responsibility is to never forget their sacrifice nor deny the responsibility we now share for their health and well-being."
Snowe said that veterans account for 16 percent of Maine's population over the age of 18, placing Maine behind only Alaska in the percentage of veterans in the state.
About a dozen DAV members from Maine attended the hearing, along with members from across the country.
Published in The Bangor Daily News, in Maine.
