Mark Dayton: “For all its apparent success, lawmakers have disregarded the Veterans Administration model and others like it that use…”

“For all its apparent success, lawmakers have disregarded the Veterans Administration model and others like it that use the Government's immense power to negotiate lower prescription drug prices. In fact, under the Senate and House bills, under existing law, Congress would exempt the drug industry from the kind of cost controls in place for virtually every other major provider of Medicare services. One of the founders of the current health maintenance organization concept who then recanted his support based on what they became, former Minnesotan Dr. Paul M. Elwood, said in the article: The legislation pending in Congress does more to deform than to reform Medicare. Drug companies [the article goes on] say they support prescription drug coverage under Medicare [since the taxpayer will be paying for more of these medicines]. But in the last few years, they have invested several hundred million dollars in campaign contributions, lobbying and advertising to head off price controls. They were the largest contributor in the last campaign cycle for Federal campaigns, and of course those are not philanthropic contributions; they are political investments on which they expect and are receiving their desired return. The article goes on to say: The legislation "reflects a political judgment that the pharmaceutical industry" would block "price controls or any arrangement that used the concentrated purchasing power of the government to buy prescription drugs," said Paul B.…”