Every day millions of Americans benefit from the miracles of modern medicine, especially groundbreaking pharmaceutical research that’s produced life-saving prescription medicines.
Of course, paying for prescription medicines is not cheap. And I learned a long time ago, there’s no such thing as a free lunch.
The federal government spends about $50 billion on prescription drugs. Next year, when the new Medicare prescription drug benefit goes into effect, it will spend even more.
As chairman of the Senate Finance Committee, which bears legislative and oversight authority over Medicare, I successfully steered through Congress the legislation to create the first-ever Medicare Rx benefit.
I held dozens and dozens of town meetings across Iowa to gather input from seniors, younger workers, health care professionals and community leaders during the months and months of negotiations it took to reach the bi-partisan agreement on Medicare’s biggest improvement since 1965.
As a matter of public policy, adding a prescription drug benefit to Medicare was simply the right thing to do. Without it, the health care program insuring some 49 million Americans was stuck in the 1960s practice of medicine.
The Medicare Modernization Act of 2003 sought to strike the most reasonable balance between the need for a Medicare prescription drug benefit and its cost for hard-working taxpayers.
From my chairmanship of the tax-writing panel in the U.S. Senate, I take seriously my responsibilities to spend tax dollars wisely. Call it conscientious stewardship or a tight-fisted grip over the federal purse strings. Either way, I cringe to see one nickel wasted by the federal government.
We live in a world of limited resources. Contrary to some points of view, Congress can’t tax its way to balancing the budget. It would break the ingenuity and entrepreneurial way of life that fuels the American Dream for millions of newcomers and long-time citizens of this country.
So lawmakers must strike the right balance to budget the responsibilities of the federal government, from maintaining a strong military to providing national security, building roads and bridges, enforcing criminal, health and environmental laws, policing the nation’s borders, processing immigration and visa requests, and financing other vital services provided for law-abiding, taxpaying citizens of this country.
The bottom line that many of my colleagues in Washington conveniently forget however, is that government services are paid for entirely by taxpayers. The money coming into the Federal Treasury doesn’t grow on a tree farm near Forest City, Iowa.
This brings me to my latest effort to rein in federal spending by eliminating payment for certain lifestyle drugs under all federal health care programs. The Congressional Budget Office estimates Medicare and Medicaid alone would spend $2 billion on these drugs, including Viagra, Cialis and Levitra between 2006 and 2015.
Now I appreciate the view undoubtedly held by many that these drugs can improve one’s life. But it comes back to our world of limited resources. Scarce Medicare and Medicaid dollars would be put to better use paying for life-saving medical treatments, pain management for the chronically ill and preventive care for an aging American population.
Obviously, I’m not introducing legislation to prevent those covered by federal programs – such as Medicare and Medicaid - from obtaining prescription drugs prescribed for sexual or erectile dysfunction. Patients wanting to use these medicines to improve sexual performance are welcome to pay for them out of their own pockets. My legislation also would not prevent coverage by the federal government of these drugs for treatments not related to sexual performance.
My legislation also would address another controversy that’s cropped up recently regarding these taxpayer-financed anti-impotence drugs. A news survey released in May exposed that nearly 800 convicted sex offenders in 14 states had been obtaining Viagra through the federal-state Medicaid program. In Iowa, at least three registered sex offenders received Viagra via Medicaid from April 30 through May 20 of this year.
Lawmakers confront difficult spending decisions year after year. But this one seems like a no-brainer. This is a reasonable way Congress can conserve at least two billion federal health care dollars over the next decade. It reflects an underlying goal of the MMA to ensure access to life-saving medicines. It is good public policy for the public good that illustrates good stewardship over hard-earned tax dollars. And it would help sustain federal health care programs, such as Medicare and Medicaid, for more Americans in the future.