Healthy Skepticism Library item: 7728

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Publication type: news

Associated Press.
Bush Plans to Veto Drug Legislation
Associated Press 2007 Jan 11
http://users2.wsj.com/lmda/do/checkLogin?mg=wsj-users2&url=http%3A%2F%2Fonline.wsj.com%2Farticle_print%2FSB116854737547274274.html

Full text:

WASHINGTON — President Bush will veto legislation requiring the government to negotiate with drug companies for lower prices under Medicare, Republican officials said Thursday.

The House is scheduled to debate and vote Friday on the bill, which is one of a handful of priority items for Democrats who gained control of Congress in last fall’s elections. Republicans said the White House was preparing a formal veto threat against the measure.

The administration has been working with key Republicans in Congress on a response to the legislation. One official said a recent draft of the formal statement was unequivocal in promising a veto.

Mr. Bush has already threatened to veto another of the top six bills Democrats are pushing across the House floor in the first two weeks of the new Congress. That’s the measure, approved Thursday, to expand the extent to which federal funds could be used for embryonic stem cell research.

Several Democrats campaigned last fall as critics of the two-year-old program that offers prescription drug coverage under Medicare, saying it tilted too heavily toward the pharmaceutical industry.

In particular, they pledged to require the government to negotiate directly with industry for lower prescription drug prices. They said they would use the savings to reduce a coverage gap that is common in many plans.

Republicans argue that individual insurance companies already negotiate lower prices on behalf of their customers, and that the Democratic approach was tantamount to calling for federal price controls.