Editorial: Medicare drug plan a right step

On Tuesday President Clinton unveiled his plan to modernize Medicare, including his call for Congress to pass legislation that would allow the program's recipients to have access to affordable prescription drug services. If Congress agrees, starting in 2002 all Medicare recipients could pay a $24 monthly premium and receive prescription drug coverage up to $2,000. Guaranteeing prescription drug coverage for Medicare recipients is long overdue.

Millions receiving Medicare benefits already receive this coverage through supplemental insurance policies they purchase. There are an estimated 15 million Americans on Medicare, though, who receive no assistance at all to pay for their prescription drugs. This isn't just a problem for those with low incomes -- nearly half of those on Medicare who don't have coverage are middle-class Americans. Lack of insurance has hit Medicare recipients especially hard in recent years as the cost of prescription drugs has skyrocketed. These high costs can place this vital component of health care out of their reach of those on limited incomes. In some instances Americans have to choose between eating or buying prescription drugs.

When Medicare was created in 1965, pharmaceuticals didn't play as significant a role in medical treatment as they do today. As Clinton noted Tuesday, the advances in pharmaceuticals often result in drugs saving more lives than scalpels do. "Many of the drugs we now routinely use to treat heart disease, cancer and arthritis did not exist in 1965," Clinton said.

The need to provide coverage has been adequately demonstrated, but the cost to provide drug coverage admittedly is huge. The new benefit would cost $118 billion over 10 years, but 60 percent of these costs would be offset by savings Clinton has proposed elsewhere in the Medicare program. The remainder of the plan would be paid for from the federal government's budget surplus -- $45.5 billion.

While Clinton's plan has been praised for the most part, the sniping began almost as soon as it was announced. Some in the health care industry believe it has gone too far. And while some Democrats in Congress believe Clinton should have offered more coverage, they should get a reality check and remember the difficulty other health care plans have faced. For instance, when President Clinton was elected in 1992 one of his chief priorities was to provide universal health care coverage, but the health care lobby effectively killed any chances of Congress passing such sweeping legislation. Even modest HMO reforms have run into roadblocks in the GOP-led Congress.

There may be some elements of the president's overall proposal to reform the Medicare program that will need to be modified once Congress has the opportunity to hold hearings and review the plan in more detail. But Clinton's universal prescription drug coverage proposal should be adopted -- it's excellent public policy that will result in sound medicine.

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