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Building A Medicaid Bipartisan Bridge
By NAPS,
North American Precis Syndicate
. New York
,
NY
.
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Photo:
NAPS
(NAPS) |
by Jeffrey Lewis
(NAPSI)—With the nation increasingly politically divided, two United
States senators are reaching across the aisle to work on a growing problem
facing Medicaid: truth in rebates.
The bipartisan duo, Senators Chuck Grassley (R, Iowa) and Ron Wyden (D,
Oregon), have reintroduced the Right Rebate Act of 2018, which would close a
loophole in Medicaid that has allowed pharmaceutical manufacturers to
misclassify their drugs and overcharge taxpayers by billions of dollars. The
bill also affords the Department of Health and Human Services additional
authority to ensure drugs are properly classified. The legislation would give
the Secretary of Health and Human Services (HHS) greater authority and tools
to monitor drug manufacturers that participate in the Medicaid Drug Rebate
Program (MDRP) and would allow the Secretary to impose civil monetary
penalties when drugs are expressly misclassified.
The Senators’ argument: Pharmaceutical manufacturers are gaming the system by intentionally misclassifying drugs to
reduce rebate obligations and starving states of millions of dollars owed.
The bipartisan legislation fixes that problem and sends a clear signal to PhRMA companies that neither Republicans nor Democrats
will tolerate the callous disregard of honesty and transparency in
government.
The senators should be applauded for their courage to work collaboratively
to solve a pressing health care issue, putting the needs of the nation ahead
of politics.
They follow a trail blazed by Senators Patrick Moynihan (D, NY) and John Heinz
(R, PA), who argued more than 29 years ago that the federal government was
using the Social Security Trust Fund to mask the size of the deficit.
Moynihan referred to it as thievery; Heinz called it embezzlement.
In an era in which bipartisanship has become a rarity, the work of
Senators Grassley and Wyden should not be ignored. Their courage to
collaborate and their willingness to continue to tackle tough, often boring
health care issues shines like a beacon in the dark tunnel of congressional fingerpointing.
For many years, Senator Grassley has doggedly pursued the truth in
government spending, much as former Senator Bill Proxmire,
a Democrat, did before him. Grassley’s commitment to honesty in
government is well known in Washington, D.C. Senator Wyden, who built his
political career on creating health care solutions for seniors, also stands
as a national icon for transparency in health care spending and is a hero to
those without a voice.
While neither senator could be considered a household name outside his
home state, in the world of health care, both men represent something
special: integrity. Their zeal to solve this specific Medicaid problem should
be appreciated by every governor in the nation, as it has the potential to
free up funds to operate health care programs in their states. But most
importantly, the senators’ bipartisan collaboration sets a tone long
missing in politics that others would do well to follow.
• Jeffrey Lewis is the
president and CEO of Legacy Health Endowment in Turlock, Calif. The views
expressed are his own.
 “The Right Rebate Act of 2018 would close a
loophole in Medicaid that lets pharmaceutical manufacturers misclassify their
drugs and overcharge taxpayers by billions of dollars, says Jeffrey Lewis,
the president and CEO of Legacy Health Endowment. http://bit.ly/2DgK6uL”
On the Net:North American Precis Syndicate, Inc.(NAPSI)
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