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President Clinton to Push for Medicare Coverage of Prescription Drugs

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BILL HEMMER, CNN ANCHOR: A new study says older Americans are being hit hard by soaring drug prices, and President Clinton is using the data from the study, a study funded by Families USA, to push for Medicare coverage of prescription drugs.

More now from the White House and our senior White House correspondent, John King there.

John, good morning.

JOHN KING, CNN SENIOR WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning to you, Bill.

About 30 minutes from now, the president flanked by the Democratic leaders of the House and the Senate and representatives of that consumer group, Families USA, will make the case that elderly Americans facing soaring drug prices, and, in the president's view, that those prescription drugs should be covered by the Medicare program.

Now, the president has pushed for this issue before. He will be armed today with that new study you mentioned. It tracks prescription drug prices, the increase in those prices not only in the past year, but over the past six years.

Let's take a look at some of the findings. What the study says, that the price of the most frequently used drugs, most frequently used by elderly Americans, is up 30.5 percent from 1994-2000. That's twice the rate of inflation. And the study makes the case that elderly Americans, many of them on fixed incomes, have been faced with a string of price hikes over the past six years.

Now, the president will use this to make the case that the government should spend nearly $200 billion over the next 10 years and add a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program. Almost 40 million Americans enrolled in that program. Obviously that makes it a powerful not only policy issue, but political issue. The president in pushing for that today will say Congress should adopt it this year.

The Republicans, however, have a very different approach. They say the government should push insurance companies and HMOs to give most elderly Americans those benefits and deal only with the low- income elderly. The Republicans say, for about $40 billion over five years, you could give those benefits to the elderly Americans who need it most.

So this policy fight today a political issue that will be carried out through the November elections.

John King, CNN, reporting live from the White House.

DARYN KAGAN, CNN ANCHOR: John, thank you.

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