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"At the other end of the life spectrum, it is likely that the $400 billion medicare drug benefit, despite its limits, may increase pharmaceutical treatments for a range of elder problems as well. This policy shift in benefits is likely to encourage pharmaceutical companies to expand their markets by promoting more drug solutions for elders. Genetics and Enhancement We are at the dawn of the age of genomic medicine." - Peter Conrad, The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders (Get the book.) "It will be interesting to see, for example, what impact the new medicare drug benefit will have on the medicalization of problems among older adults covered by the program. Some medically promoted treatments and procedures are not covered by insurance; these direct markets are similar to markets for other goods and services in society (Conrad and Leiter, 2004). Several cases in this book (e.g., baldness treatments and breast augmentation) fit into this category. This growing commercialization ?" - Peter Conrad, The Medicalization of Society: On the Transformation of Human Conditions into Treatable Disorders (Get the book.)

"It begins with a bold crime, develops into a farce, with petty acts of tomfoolery and fraud along the way, and ends in shame, regret, and disaster. The medicare drug benefit program, enacted during Bush's first term, was meant to cost $400 billion during its first 10 years. Turns out, the official estimates included 2004 and 2005, that is, two years before the program existed. The real 10-year cost of the program floated through the news months later at $720 billion. Americans voted for their representatives in Congress and the White House; the politicians voted for the free drugs." - William Bonner, Addison Wiggin, Empire of Debt: The Rise of an Epic Financial Crisis (Get the book.)

"In his first term, Bill Clinton picked up on the mood and began hinting at price controls on drugs and, perhaps, a medicare drug benefit — something big pharma hated because it brought with it the specter of even more hardball price negotiators. At Merck, the new pressure on price had arrived as a storm. Only a few years before, Merck, which had been touted as "the miracle company," was now, as Business Week pronounced, "showing its age." Raymond Gilmartin, the man the board eventually hired to slow the aging process, was in almost every way his predecessor's alter ego." - Greg Critser, Generation Rx: How Prescription Drugs are Altering American Lives, Minds, and Bodies (Get the book.)

"Again, medicare drug benefit plans, patents, and drug pricing.9 Who were these lobbyists? You may be surprised at how many of their names you recognize. Many of them were former politicians who are influential and well connected in the halls of Congress. They include former Senators Connie Mack (R-Florida) and Birch Bayh (D-Indiana). PhRMA employed former Democratic Representative Vic Fazio of California. Pfizer hired former Democratic Senator Dennis DiConcini of Arizona and former Republican Representative Norman Lent of New York, as well as Orrin Hatch's son Scott." - Richard A. Deyo M.D. M.P.H., Donald L. Patrick, Hope or Hype: The Obsession with Medical Advances and the High Cost of False Promises (Get the book.) "One of the most potent weapons against a medicare drug benefit that would reduce prices, though, wasn't the hired gun in Washington. It was an innocent-sounding, ersatz grassroots organization called Citizens for Better Medicare. It's best known for an aggressive TV and newspaper campaign against adding drug benefits to Medicare that featured "Flo," who warned against letting "big government" into her medicine cabinet. The group could raise and spend unlimited sums, without disclosure, as long as it didn't directly intervene in an election—such as by endorsing a candidate." - Richard A. Deyo M.D. M.P.H., Donald L. Patrick, Hope or Hype: The Obsession with Medical Advances and the High Cost of False Promises (Get the book.) "Other organizations with support from PhRMA helped with television ads supporting Republican proposals for a medicare drug benefit. The United Seniors Association, self-described as a "conservative seniors' organization," ran a $3 million ad campaign in about a dozen cities during May of 2002. The organization's president, Charles Jarvis, denied that PhRMA funded the ads, claiming that they were a grassroots effort. But a PhRMA spokesperson indicated that her organization had recently given United Seniors an "unrestricted educational grant" of an undisclosed amount." - Richard A. Deyo M.D. M.P.H., Donald L. Patrick, Hope or Hype: The Obsession with Medical Advances and the High Cost of False Promises (Get the book.)

"Big pharma simply would not have permitted a medicare drug benefit that included price negotiations. Congress was willing to make a useless transfer of billions of extra dollars from taxpayers to the drug companies and pharmacy benefit managers rather than cross big pharma. The industry is cozy with both Republicans and Democrats and with both the White House and Congress. But most of its attentions are lavished on Republicans, and vice versa. The New York Times reported that in 1999, Jim Nicholson, then chairman of the Republican National Committee, wrote to Charles A." - Marcia Angell, M.D., The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It (Get the book.) "Senior citizens are particularly angry, and they are unlikely to be placated for long by the medicare drug benefit, for reasons I discussed in the last chapter. More and more Americans, even whole towns, are buying their drugs in Canada, where they are much cheaper, and there is pressure on Congress to undo the industry-inspired law that made doing so illegal. Large insurers and state governments are pushing back against drug prices by insisting on steep discounts and using lists of preferred drugs (formularies)." - Marcia Angell, M.D., The Truth About the Drug Companies: How They Deceive Us and What to Do About It (Get the book.)

"This trend is likely to accelerate as the medicare drug benefit takes effect fully in 2006, and Congress refuses to abandon a legislative policy that makes American consumers pay the highest prices in the world for prescription drugs. BLAME IT ON BAD BREATH Today's prescription-drug ads on television owe their origins to a revolutionary change on Madison Avenue that occurred nearly a century ago." - Donald L. Barlett and James B. Steele, Critical Condition: How Health Care in America Became Big Business (Get the book.)

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