Partisan rhetoric and special interest “spin” have been cluttering the airwaves and filling newspapers across the country since the U.S. Senate voted down a prescription drug plan last month. 

This should not be a partisan issue. A person that is sick because they are not able to buy the medicine they need does not care about Republicans and Democrats. A person that goes hungry because their medicine costs four times more in the United States than it does anywhere else in the world does not care about Republicans and Democrats.

Only in Washington D.C. could professional politicians and special interests turn what’s literally a life-or-death issue into a new forum for partisan mudslinging.

After all, America’s seniors are the “greatest generation”. They worked hard, fought World War II, and built the greatest nation in history.  Now, they are being robbed by greedy corporate executives and our current public policy lets this happen.  Our senior citizens deserve better.

As the only licensed pharmacist in Congress, I have been actively working on this problem since I was elected in 1996, and I would like to take this opportunity to set the record straight. 

The record and the facts speak for themselves.

Americans pay 3-4 times as much for their medicine as patients in any other country, because a 1987 law guarantees a monopoly for pharmaceutical companies in the U.S.  In December 2000, I joined forces with Rep. Jo Ann Emerson, a Republican from Missouri, to write legislation that would introduce competition into the pharmaceutical system by allowing companies to import the same medicine we use in the United States, but sell it at the lower price paid by patients in other countries.

After a lot of hard work, Rep. Emerson and I earned the support of Republicans and Democrats and passed the bill, which was then signed into law by President Clinton in the last days of his Administration.  Unfortunately, when President Bush took office, he specifically directed the Food and Drug Administration not to implement this law even though it was supported by Republicans and Democrats alike.

In other words, President Bush with the single stroke of a pen could implement a bipartisan plan to dramatically reduce the cost of prescription drugs in this country at no cost to taxpayers or patients.

For a country and an Administration that repeatedly touts the benefits of free trade, it is disappointing that we refuse to allow free trade in medicine.  The Administration’s decision to ignore a law with bipartisan support is convincing evidence that the pharmaceutical companies got what they paid for when they spent tens of millions of dollars in campaign contributions.

The second part of the problem is that prescription medicines are now seniors’ largest out-of-pocket health-related expense.   For this simple reason, prescription drug coverage must be a guaranteed Medicare benefit.  If we do this, we can harness the mass buying power of Medicare to force pharmaceutical companies to lower their prices.  Again, this approach would significantly reduce the cost of prescription drugs at no cost to taxpayers or patients.

Since nearly every senior citizen has to take prescription medicine, government subsidized private prescription drug insurance would not work.  Selling prescription drug insurance to a senior citizen is like selling homeowners insurance to someone whose house is on fire.  A private insurance company would go broke, if they did either one.

In June, the House of Representatives passed a sham prescription drug bill that would give Medicare tax dollars to insurance companies with a request, but not a requirement, to provide prescription drug insurance for seniors.  Not only did this legislation fail to specify the benefits available to Medicare patients, it prohibited the use of the mass buying power of Medicare to force pharmaceutical companies to lower prices.  The bill that passed was nothing more than a political fig leaf, pure and simple.

As this sham bill was moving through the legislature, the Speaker of the House refused to allow Congress to even debate a bill, supported by Democrats, that would have guaranteed a real prescription drug benefit for seniors under Medicare.  This plan would have paid 80% of a patient’s prescription drug costs up to $2,000 and for all prescription drug costs after that.  It would have a small $25 monthly premium and a low $100 annual deductible.

Unfortunately, the Senate last month could not set aside partisan rhetoric and failed to pass any kind of prescription drug legislation.  The record is clear.  Let it stand for itself.

Americans seniors still suffer from high drug prices and no Medicare prescription drug coverage.  For too long, we have been promising patients that we would stop greedy and unethical pharmaceutical executives from robbing them.   

This issue is truly a matter of life and death, and we won’t solve it until Congress and the Administration stop putting partisan politics and special interests ahead of the health and well-being of all Americans, particularly seniors.

United States Representative Marion Berry (D-AR) represents the First Congressional District of Arkansas.  He is the only registered pharmacist in the United States Congress and has used his training to become an outspoken advocate on health care issues, particularly for Rural America. In addition, he co-chairs the Blue Dog Health Care Task Force, the House Democratic Health Care Task Force and the Democratic Prescription Drug Message Team.