Sen Carper, from the great state of DuPont (I mean Delaware) appears to have an big "ethical dilemna" with Sen Nelson's proposed amendment to the Finance Bill to save approximately 86 Billion over the next 10 years. It would achieve that incredible amount of savings simply by paying Medicaid rates for the 8 million older poor Americans who, having transitioned from Medicaid to Medicare, are dually eligible for Medicaid and Medicare.
This would take advantage of Medicaid's bulk purchasing of Drugs, at far lower prices than Medicare Part D pricing. This actually WAS the status of this group until BushCo pushed through its execrable Medicaid Part D legislation. As a direct result of that legislation dually eligible seniors were forced to get their drugs through Medicare instead of Medicaid.
Carper's dilemma maybe something more than an "ethical" one. He's raked in a cool $268,520 from the Pharmaceuticals/Health Products industry alone (plus a similar amount from the insurance industry).
More b-lo
What Carper was carping about is that Obama's deal with big Pharma to cut their pricing by 80 billion over 10 years would somehow be annulled by this amendment. He stated that (paraphrasing) "where I come from a deal's a deal", and that we shouldn't reneg on what the President has done.
This caused Schumer to reply that, Congress is an independent agent and can act in the best interests of Americans irrespective of whatever the Executive branch may have done. He then, along with Rockefeller, pointed out how Medicare Part D was changed 5 years ago, at which time dual Medicaid/Medicare eligible people lost these benefits they'd previously had (as you correctly point out). This amendment does nothing more than correct this outrage....this big blow job for big Pharma... perpetrated by BuschCo on the American people.
Carper then got into it with Schumer and Nelson on the fact that Obama had only negotiated 150B in reductions over ten yrs for hospitals and that this was unfair if big Pharma had to pony up the same amount, when pharma is 10% of the HCI and Hospitals are 35%. This argument was utterly destroyed by Schumer, who asked the panel of experts about hospital profits vs phrama profits. They're about 400% greater for Pharma (many hospitals (50%) are non-profit and hospitals operate at a loss for medicare patients (about -6%)
The right semed to be caught a bit off guard by this amendment.
Kyl seemed especially ignorant about what was going on, asking what revnues needed to be raised to pay for this. It was actually weird; he seemed to be not comprehending anything (obviously there's no deficit aspect to this amendment; it ADDS 86Billion).
Grassley then claimed there was a tax; a tax on the American people in the form of increased pricing by Pharma to make up for these losses. Get real Grassley, even with Medicaid bulk purchasing phrama still makes money on their drugs, and, with 46 million people about to be added to the system, even with a public option for many, they'll make even more money. They sell their drugs for FAR LESS in other countries and make money.