Medicare - Democrats love the savings

Government negotiations to lower prices on drugs for elderly Americans would save patients and taxpayers $30 billion a year, according to a group backing legislation that empowers federal officials to seek discounts.

The federal Medicare health program should apply the same bulk-purchasing methods that the Veterans Affairs Department has used for years, said Roger Hickey, co-director of the Campaign for America's Future, in a report to be released today by U.S. Senator Debbie Stabenow of Michigan.

Stabenow is among Democrats who want the Senate to back a measure the House passed in January that would require Medicare to negotiate lower prices with drugmakers. Congress prohibited the agency from doing so in 2003, when it created the drug benefit for disabled and elderly Americans on Medicare.

President George W. Bush has vowed to veto a change in the law, saying the private market is doing the job well.

``The Senate has spent a great deal of its time focusing on reforming lobbying and ethics rules,'' Hickey wrote in the report with Dean Baker, co-director of the Center for Economic and Policy Research. ``It should also focus on undoing the legislative provisions that were only inserted into law because of special interest lobbying.''

Drugmakers spent a record $155 million on lobbying from January 2005 to June 2006, employing 1,100 people in the effort, according to a report from the Washington-based nonprofit Center for Public Integrity.

Big Pharma sold $2.5 billion more in prescription drugs last year because of the Medicare drug benefit, known as Part D, according to research firm IMS Health Inc.

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