Consider this: The Republican Medicare prescription drug bill that Bush proudly signed prohibits the U.S. government from using the purchasing power of 41 million Medicare beneficiaries to negotiate with drug companies to lower the price of drugs, something the Veterans Administration is free to do.One difference: A month's supply of Pravachol, a popular cholesterol-regulating drug, costs the VA $19.80 -- and at the drug store, a customer would pay $116.75 for the same dosage.
Forbidding the public sector to negotiate with the pharmaceutical companies, it is estimated, will mean $139 billion in windfall profits for the drug industry.
--Mark Shields, 13 September 2004