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American Morning

Plan by Bush Administration to Provide Discount Prescription Drug Cards for Elderly Americans Hits Legal Roadblock

Aired September 07, 2001 - 09:08   ET

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.

THIS IS A RUSH TRANSCRIPT. THIS COPY MAY NOT BE IN ITS FINAL FORM AND MAY BE UPDATED.
JEANNE MESERVE, CNN ANCHOR: A plan by the Bush administration to provide discount prescription drug cards for elderly Americans has hit a legal roadblock. Now, officials are looking for ways to save this program, which was designed to save seniors some money.

CNN White House correspondent Major Garrett joins us with details.

Good morning, Major.

MAJOR GARRETT, CNN WHITE HOUSE CORRESPONDENT: Good morning, Leon.

The idea from the Bush White House was to sort of sidestep Congress. The Bush White House knew it would take a very long time to work out deal with Congress on prescription drug benefits for seniors, so the idea was to get pharmaceutical benefits managers, people who negotiate the prices for drugs that seniors buy, could get discounts and pass them on to seniors through this Medicare drug card, a card approved by Medicare, and the government.

Well, there was a problem. And it was anticipated almost from the very beginning on July 12th when the president announced this plan. Chain drug pharmacies, chain drugstores said, wait a minute, if they negotiate those kind of discounts, that is coming out of our bottom line. Those chain drugstores took the plan to court in a federal judge -- yesterday, evening, and said, we are going to put this whole plan on hold. And this morning, Health and Human Services Secretary Thompson said that federal decision came as quite a shock.

(BEGIN VIDEO CLIP)

TOMMY THOMPSON, HEALTH AND HUMAN SERVICES SECRETARY: We are somewhat surprised and disappointed. We thought sure that the judge is going to rule in our favor. We think that this is a very viable and very important initiative by the president. In fact, it's going to allow for seniors to purchase their drugs at a discount from all the way up to 25 percent. Seniors need that, they want it, and we thought that this card would give them that benefit.

(END VIDEO CLIP)

GARRETT: Back to the drawing board for Bush administration now. The legal people are -- health human services are reviewing their options, wondering if they are going to appeal this federal judge's decision, or take the whole matter to Congress, which would be clearly a slower process. The White House had hoped these drug benefit cards would be available to Medicare-eligible seniors by January. Clearly that's not going to happen at all -- Leon.

MESERVE: Major, let me ask you about another report that' in papers this morning about the administration perhaps proposing to relax some regulations on nursing homes. What are you hearing about that?

GARRETT: Well, the administration would say not relaxing necessarily, but prioritizing in a different way. Right now, the federal government goes through a rather regular process of inspecting all nursing homes around the country. What the Bush administration is suggesting is taking the limited budget that the Department of Health and Human Services has, and concentrating that budget on the nursing homes that have the most problems and infractions, and leaving those which have a good record of safety alone for a while longer.

The administration says its just reprioritizing, trying to focus more federal resources on the bad nursing homes. However, consumer advocates say, you know, a nursing home can turn bad almost overnight over a change in management or a change in patient load, and you really need to keep constant vigilance on all the nursing homes. The White House is going trying to change that.

HARRIS: Yes, we'll have to watch that story as that one unfolds.

Thanks much, Major, Major Garret at the White House.

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