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July 11, 2005

Strong Medicine

In just a few years in Washington, Mike Leavitt has already proved ready to meet whatever challenge President Bush has laid before him. When Bush needed to fill a vacancy at the Environmental Protection Agency, he tapped the former Utah governor for the post. Soon, Bush would take him out of the pot and put him into the fire, selecting Leavitt as the new Health and Human Services secretary at a time when that agency is facing one of its greatest challenges: implementing a new — and much criticized — prescription drug benefit under Medicare.

In an interview with Roll Call Executive Editor Morton M. Kondracke, Leavitt addressed many of the trials the nation will face as government and health care providers struggle with putting the drug benefit in place, battling counterfeit drugs, covering the millions of uninsured in the nation, overhauling Medicaid, giving Americans “ownership” of their own medical records and benefits, and seeking to shift the focus of both consumers and providers to prevention. A transcript of the conversation follows.

Congress Mustn’t Be Misled by ‘Hype’

This week the Senate will consider expanding federal funding of human embryo-destructive research. Proponents of human embryonic stem-cell research have organized an impressive campaign to solicit taxpayer funding. This campaign has enlisted the help of popular celebrities. It has utilized the emotional appeal of young boys and girls with Type-I Diabetes. And it has already generated billions of taxpayer dollars for research through initiatives like California’s Proposition 71, which allows scientists to do as they wish with state taxpayer funds — no strings attached.

Restrictions on Stem-Cell Research Limit Discovery

I wish all my colleagues in Congress could have heard the eloquent words of Robert Klein at a bipartisan press conference on stem-cell research in the Senate on June 29. Mr. Klein, a 36 year old from Falmouth, Mass., suffered a serious spinal cord injury five years ago, and has been confined to a wheelchair since then.

Medical Care Under Liability Crunch

Imagine that your teenage daughter is very ill and in need of immediate medical attention. You learn she is suffering from myasthenia gravis, a condition involving shortness of breath due to muscle weakness. Such shortness of breath can become severe enough to require hospitalization for breathing support, as well as treatment for the underlying infection. If the problem is not identified and treated correctly, it could lead to death.

Insurance Reform Must Be Part of Liability Debate

The American health care system is in crisis, in part because of ever-skyrocketing medical malpractice insurance rates. Contrary to the assertions of some, however, the reason for high medical malpractice insurance rates is not payouts from frivolous patient lawsuits, but insurance industry practices.

Medicaid Needs Welfare-Like Reform

Erainna Johnson, 42, and legally blind from a stroke several years ago, depends on Mississippi’s Medicaid program to pay for the 19 medications she needs to treat her medical conditions. According to a recent story in The New York Times, Mississippi will soon adopt a new policy that will restrict Medicaid beneficiaries like Johnson to no more than five prescriptions per month.

Cutting Medicaid Funds Is Short-Sighted Move

Late in April, Congress passed a federal budget blueprint for fiscal 2006 that includes a $10 billion cut in federal funding for Medicaid. The Bush administration then stepped in and established a “Medicaid Commission” charged with identifying policy changes that would produce a spending cut of that magnitude. Even though it is the responsibility of Congress, not the White House, to modify the Medicaid program, the administration refused to give Members of Congress a vote on this commission.

Reimportation Threatens Innovation

There’s no doubt that pharmaceuticals cost too much, especially compared to the cost of needed medicine abroad. There’s also no doubt we need to find a solution to this problem. But none of the so-called solutions before the Congress — such as allowing importation of U.S. medicines from Canada and Europe — are the answer.

Congress Can Create Low-Cost Drug System

Prescription drug prices are too high in this country, and I have made it one of my top priorities to lower them. In fact, the first bill I introduced in the Senate was to allow for the safe importation of lower priced prescription drugs from Canada.