EVERETT — The Medicare bill that Congress passed last week will do little to help seniors buy prescription drugs, U.S. Rep. Rick Larsen told a luncheon meeting of the Everett Central Lions Club on Wednesday.
"We have these skyrocketing drug prices, and this bill won’t help with that," said Larsen, who voted against the bill. "Seniors will do the math: ‘It’s still cheaper for me to take money out of my own pocket and buy drugs from Canada,’ and it’s tough for me to tell them they can’t."
The bill, which passed 220-215 in the House of Representatives and 54-44 in the Senate, will create a Medicare prescription drug benefit that will start in 2006. President Bush said he will sign the bill into law.
Supporters of the measure point out that the government will pay three-fourths of drug expenditures up to $2,250, as long as beneficiaries pay an annual $250 deductible and monthly premiums averaging $35 the first year. But the government will pay nothing after that, except to seniors with "catastrophic" drug expenses.
Larsen, an Arlington Democrat, said the bill should have legalized the purchase of cheaper prescription drugs from Canada. Prescription drugs cost 140 percent more in Larsen’s 2nd Congressional District — which includes most of Snohomish County — than in Canada, he said.
The bill also should have allowed the federal government to negotiate lower drug prices with pharmaceutical companies, he said.
Floyd Lord, 66, of Everett agreed with Larsen and said he’s so angry at the Medicare bill that he is thinking of switching political parties.
"I’m a right-wing Reagan Republican, but I’m about ready to change that," he said. "Congress is telling me they don’t care if I live or I die."
John Patchamatla, 69, said that, with all the talk over the past few months of improving Medicare coverage, "I was hoping for something more substantial."
"For middle-class Americans who are retired and on fixed incomes, this is no good," the Everett man said. "This will help the drug companies — that’s about it. It will fatten up their pockets."
Tim Coulter, 49, of Mill Creek agreed that the government should help seniors who truly cannot afford prescription drugs. But he feared that price caps on medications could discourage drug companies from spending money on research and development.
Larry O’Donnell of Everett said he’s been trying to make sense of the 681-page Medicare bill and still doesn’t know quite what to think.
"It sounds to me that it doesn’t build in features that will bring prescription drug prices under control," the 66-year-old Everett man said. "But it’s terribly complicated. I just don’t know enough about it."
Reporter David Olson: 425-339-3452 or dolson@heraldnet.com.
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