Blog Lights On Afterschool Highlighting The Importance Of Program QualityIt turned out that Flo was working for the deep pocketed pharmaceutical industry. They successfully used her ad to sink major legislation proposed by President Bill Clinton to add a voluntary drug benefit to Medicare. It wasn't until 2003 that the Medicare Prescription Drug, Improvement and Modernization Act, which added the Part D drug benefit to Medicare, was finally signed into law by President George W. Bush. But, although the bill provided a drug benefit, it specifically prohibited Medicare from negotiating prices with drug manufacturers, even though Medicare negotiates prices for almost every other service and for Part B drugs. High drug prices put patient's lives at risk every day when people can't afford to fill their prescriptions..Recently a journalist, familiar with my estimates of cost-of-living adjustments, contacted me for my thoughts on the topic. Did I think we were staring down rising inflation? I told him that I needed to see more data..Another critical feature of the plan is the redundancy of the supply chain, such as the existence of multiple manufacturers for each product and its precursors … Continued
Environment And Natural ResourcesThis week, appropriators in the House and Senate continued making progress on a number of fiscal 2015 bills. Notably, House Appropriations Chairman Hal Rogers released a plan to trim funding slightly for the contentious Labor-HHS-Education measure, which the Social Security and Medicare programs both fall under. The plan would provide 5.7 billion in funding for the measure, which is approximately billion below the current funding level..TSCL is working for legislation that would eliminate the one-time gain "means test," and supports efforts that would repeal determination of Medicare benefits based on income. To learn more, please visit..Then they must raise the debt ceiling so the government can borrow more money to pay its bills. … Continued
