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 "Translated into plain English, here’s what the feds are saying Doyle did: [he tried] to use federal money to allow seniors into taxpayer subsidized healthcare, without any asset test or accountability of who’s in it.”

McBride acknowledges that certainly, SeniorCare has been a great help to many needy seniors. However, “other states that had the pilot program had tougher requirements than we did. For example, Wisconsin did not require income verification and allowed participants to estimate future income.

“The bottom line is that the federal government’s rules for every other state require the asset test. Gov. Doyle didn’t want to provide the documentation because Wisconsin doesn’t [have] an asset test. Well, it’s federal money. So it’s their rules.”

Consider:
Despite a veto threat, the House passed a bill last Friday to require the government to negotiate with drug manufacturers to obtain lower drug prices for Medicare beneficiaries. And lack of drug discounts is one big complaint SeniorCare defenders have about Medicare D. But work done by two members of Stanford’s Graduate School of Business exposes several good reasons why government negotiating may not lead to lower prices.

According to the Daily Policy Digest, “rather than market share, a party's bargaining power is determined simply by its ability to say no -- to walk away from the table without an agreement. If the government acts as one large buyer for Medicare, drug companies are not able to offer discounts to the government as large as they previously offered to some individual plans. This leads to higher prices.

“In the United States, the Department of Veteran Affairs' tight control over drug costs is often held up as a model for Medicare to follow. However, the main tool the VA employs to control drug costs is restricting the set of drugs that are covered. As a result, less than one-third of the drugs available to Medicare patients are available to VA patients. [emphasis is mine]

“Empowering the government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies is not necessarily equivalent to achieving lower drug prices. In fact, neither economic theory nor historical experience suggests that will be the outcome…”

Imagine that. Big pharma might not be the bad guy here.

Now…. one more thing. Is SeniorCare an insurance program or is it an entitlement program? What do you think?

More on that tomorrow….

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