Bush promises veto on Medicare drug price bill

WASHINGTON — President Bush promised on Thursday to veto Democratic-drafted legislation requiring the government to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices under Medicare.

The House is to debate and vote today on the bill, which is one of a handful of priority items for Democrats who gained control of Congress in last fall’s elections.

“Government interference impedes competition, limits access to lifesaving drugs, reduces convenience for beneficiaries and ultimately increases costs to taxpayers, beneficiaries and all American citizens alike,” the administration said in a written statement.

Further, it said, competition already “is reducing prices to seniors, providing a wide range of choices and leading to a more productive environment for the development of new drugs.”

Bush had already threatened to veto another of the top six bills Democrats are pushing across the House floor in the first two weeks of the new Congress. That’s the measure, approved Thursday, to expand the extent to which federal funds could be used for embryonic stem cell research.

Several Democrats campaigned last fall as critics of the one-year-old program that offers prescription drug coverage under Medicare, saying it tilted too heavily toward profits for the pharmaceutical and insurance industries.

Currently, private drug plans negotiate how much they’ll pay for the medicine their customers take. But the legislation under consideration Friday would require the secretary of the Department of Health and Human Services to do so.

“It is clear Medicare can do better and we are insisting that they do so,” said Rep. John Dingell, R-Mich., the bill’s author.

Democrats have said they would use the savings produced by the negotiations to reduce a coverage gap that is common in many plans.

Republicans argue that individual insurance companies already negotiate lower prices on behalf of their customers, and that the Democratic approach was tantamount to calling for federal price controls.

They note that the program is coming in under budget and seniors are expressing support for the benefit.

“What we set out to do, we accomplished,” said Sen. Jim Bunning, R-Ky., during a hearing Thursday about the drug benefit. “We had a success, a very big success.”

Also, the nonpartisan Congressional Budget Office said the legislation was unlikely to result in lower prices.