Frank Pallone: “I know we are just beating a dead horse here, but there was a report that was done by Families USA that came out a few…”

“I know we are just beating a dead horse here, but there was a report that was done by Families USA that came out a few weeks ago, and basically it said private health plans cannot provide prescription drug coverage; that is just not going to happen. It kind of follows up on what the gentleman said, and if I could just mention, I just want to read a little bit from the summary. It says, At the time H.R. 4680 was being considered, that is the bill we had last session that had the drug-only policies, it said, At the time H.R. 4680 was being considered, the insurance industry, acting through the Health Insurance Association of America, made clear that it had no intention, no intention, of offering drug-only policies. The health insurance industry reasoned that drug-only insurance policies would be subject to adverse risk selection; that is, they would disproportionately attract consumers who have existing health conditions, are sick or disabled, and are among the oldest of the old. As a result the policies would be very expensive and would have very few takers among healthier Medicare beneficiaries. The failure to attract beneficiaries with low drug costs would further drive up premium prices and lead to an increasingly unaffordable price spiral. Then they go on to talk about how we have the example with HMOs and that that is what is happening.”