Progress Report: Money for Nothing But The Drugs Aren't Free

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Center for American Progress - Progress Report

#160;

 

by David Sirota, Christy Harvey, Judd Legum and

Jonathan Baskin

 

 

 

July 27, 2004

MEDICARE Money for Nothing But The Drugs Aren't Free

CONVENTION'Boon for Special Interests

'VOTINGGOP Calls for Voter Suppression

UNDER THE RADAR

 

CORRECTION: Yesterday's Progress Report mixed up

names. We reported Fox News's top political

correspondent Carl Cameron said his wife had been out

campaigning with Pauline, President Bush's sister. In

actuality, Carl Cameron said his wife, Pauline, had

been out campaigning with Bush's sister, Dorothy. We

regret the error.

 

MEDICARE

Money for Nothing But The Drugs Aren't Free

 

Sen. Ted Kennedy (D-MA) #8211; a longtime advocate for

a meaningful prescription drug benefit #8211; is

expected to address Medicare and health care issues in

his speech to the Democratic National Convention

tonight. His address is well timed: yesterday, the

Bush administration released 1342 pages of proposed

regulations for the final prescription drug benefit

which takes effect in 2006. Despite their length, the

regulations conveniently defer many important

decisions until after a 60-day comment period. One

thing that is clear: while the prescription drug

benefit will be a boon to some large corporations,

many American seniors may see their existing

prescription coverage reduced or eliminated. Those who

do enroll in the Medicare prescription drug program

will be slapped with considerable costs when they can

least afford it.

 

REWARDING COMPANIES FOR REDUCING DRUG COVERAGE:

Starting in 2006, the new law will enable large

corporations to collect massive government subsidies

even if they significantly rollback their retiree

prescription drug benefit. The new regulations make

corporations eligible for government subsidies of up

to $940 per retiree as long as they provide drug

coverage that mimics the Medicare drug law. The

proposed rules give companies four different ways for

companies to demonstrate they are doing so. But most

companies already provide drug coverage which is

superior to the new Medicare benefit. Thus, companies

could collect the subsidy even as they roll back

coverage #8211; at a total cost to taxpayers of $89

billion over ten years.

 

MAJOR BUSH CONTRIBUTORS PROFIT HANDSOMELY: Some of the

corporations that benefit most are major contributors

to President Bush, who aggressively lobbied for the

bill's passage. For example, General Motors #8211;

whose executives have donated more than $110,000 to

Bush's presidential campaigns (versus $9,000 to John

Kerry) #8211; estimates that the new Medicare law will

be worth $4.1 billion to the company. Similarly, Excel

Energy #8211; whose executives have donated more than

$22,000 to Bush's presidential campaigns (versus $500

to John Kerry) #8211; expect to save $64 million.

 

ADMINISTRATION TELLS SENIORS TO STOP COMPLAINING:

While the administration found plenty of cash for

corporations, many seniors with high drug costs will

be left in the lurch. After paying an average of $420

in premiums and a $250 deductible seniors are still

responsible for paying up to 25% of their drug costs

up to $2,250 a year. But seniors with drug costs in

excess of $2,250 a year, even though they will

continue to pay premiums and have satisfied their

deductible will receive no assistance whatsoever for

their next $2850 in prescription drug costs. This gap,

known as " the donut, " has many seniors justifiably

concerned about their ability to pay their drug bills

in the event of a serious illness. But Health and

Human Services Secretary Tommy Thompson dismissed

their concerns saying " Only a pessimist would look at

a doughnut and complain about a hole. " #160;#160;

 

CONVENTION

'Boon for Special Interests'

 

As the Democratic Party this week uses its national

convention to trumpet its working class roots, and the

need for a government that represents the middle

class, a whole other convention is occurring out of

sight of television cameras. In scores of parties

throughout Boston, the New York Times reports,

" corporate big spenders...finally can cut loose. "

While anti-war protestors expressing their

constitutional rights are " under lockdown " and

cordoned off from the convention, lobbyists have

flooded the area, underwriting the convention with

cash from some of the biggest companies with the

biggest business before the federal government. The

brazen display of corporate largesse runs counter to

Sen. John Kerry's consistent support of campaign

finance reform. As one lobbyist at the convention

said, " Corporate dollars are flowing rather freely " at

the convention, with " a lot of folks saying, 'Let the

good times roll.' " Similarly, former DNC Chairman Don

Fowler said, " Some of the best lobbying in the world

is done at these conventions. It is a tremendous boon

for special interests. "

 

$39.5 MILLION FROM CORPORATE SPECIAL INTERESTS: The

NYT reports the Raytheon Company, IBM and Fidelity

Investments each gave at least $1 million to the host

committee for the Democratic National Convention in

Boston, according to a donor list. AT & T, Amgen and

Nextel Communications each gave at least $500,000. In

all, more than 150 donors have contributed more than

$39.5 million - money they could not legally give to a

political party or a candidate under the new law but

are permitted to donate to a convention. All told,

" private sources are on track to contribute about $110

million to this year's Democratic and Republican

conventions combined, some 13 times what they gave for

the 1992 conventions. "

 

REVERSING A TOBACCO MONEY BAN, WITH NO COMMENT: Just

eight years after then Vice President Al Gore gave an

impassioned convention speech about the ills of

tobacco, the Dallas Morning News reports this year's

Democratic Convention is being partly financed by a

$100,000 donation from Philip Morris' parent company

#8211; a move that quietly reverses a Democratic ban

on tobacco sponsorship of its conventions. The company

is also among those sponsoring a party with an

" Indiana Jones " feel at an Egyptian exhibit at

Boston's Museum of Fine Arts. When the party was asked

to respond to criticism from the Campaign for

Tobacco-free Kids, one DNC press secretary " referred

questions to the party's convention spokeswoman, who

did not return a half-dozen messages. " Meanwhile, a

spokesman for Sen. John Kerry (who does have a solid

anti-tobacco record) claimed the senator had no

knowledge of the tobacco contributions and actually

claimed " he has no control over anything [the

convention committees] do. "

 

POCKETING DRUG INDUSTRY CASH: Even after Democrats

were steamrolled by the drug industry during the

controversial passage of a new Medicare law, the

party's convention will play host to various events

sponsored by the pharmaceutical industry. As the

Indianapolis Star reports, " seven drug companies --

including Pfizer Inc., Novartis Corp., Merck & Co. and

Bristol-Myers Squibb Co. -- are among the top 36

contributors to the convention, giving $2.5 million to

$5 million combined. Another three gave up to $99,999

each. " One of the parties will be for retiring Sen.

John Breaux (D-LA), a " vocal opponent " of allowing

seniors to purchase lower-priced FDA-approved

medicines from Canada. One of his parties tonight is

called the " Breaux's Beer Beachballs Bikini Bingo

Bistro Bash on the Beach in Boston " ; when asked who

was financing it, the senator simply said, " I'm going

to have one hell of a great party. " Ironically, the

fete will be occurring in the heart of Boston, a city

that has launched a pilot program to allow city

workers and retirees to buy drugs from Canada.

 

TARGETING THE LARGESSE TO THOSE WHO MAKE A DIFFERENCE:

The corporate largesse is, by no means, random. USA

Today reports, " Mickey Kantor, a former Commerce

secretary and U.S. trade representative in the Clinton

administration, hosts a lunch today for Sen. Max

Baucus (D-MT) and Rep. Charles Rangel (D-NY), the top

Democrats on the tax-writing committees of the Senate

and House of Representatives. They'll report on the

upcoming agendas for their committees on issues

important to the lobbying practice of Kantor's law

firm. " Similarly, The San Francisco Chronicle reports

Rep. Jane Harman (D-CA) " is being featured at a brunch

Wednesday sponsored by Boeing, Lockheed Martin,

General Dynamics, Raytheon, Northrop Grumman and

SAIC. " Harman is the ranking Democrat on the House

Intelligence Committee, which has influence over

various intelligence/defense contracts.#160; #160;

 

MAKE NO MISTAKE #8211; THE GOP CONVENTION IS WORSE: As

troubling as some of the behavior at the Democratic

convention is, it appears the Republican Party is

trying to go even further. Earlier this year, CBS News

reported House Majority Leader Tom DeLay (R-TX) was

planning to use the guise of a children's charity to

allow corporate donors to slather him and other

Republicans with cash. Specifically, DeLay created a

group called " Celebrations for Children " that he said

was a charity, but planned to use to solicit corporate

donations at the Republican National Convention. " For

$50,000, a donor will get luxury box seats at the 2004

Republican convention, tickets to Broadway shows and

spots in an upscale golf tournament, " from the

" charity, " while " A half-million dollars will buy all

of that, plus a New York cruise and two dinners " with

DeLay himself. In 2000, DeLay had major corporate

donors sponsor a luxury train car for him and other

top Republicans to party in during their convention.

 

VOTING

GOP Calls for Voter Suppression

 

A string of recent declarations from top government

officials and Republican party leaders are raising

questions about whether the Bush administration is

quietly attempting to manipulate voting in the 2004

presidential election. Last week, a GOP lawmaker and

co-chair of the Bush-Cheney '04 Michigan Veterans

Leadership Team called recently for his party to

" suppress the Detroit vote, " making a mockery of

President Bush's belated attempt to reach out to

African-Americans in that city last week. Speaking at

the National Urban League, Bush said, " I believe

you've got to earn the vote and seek it, " but State

Rep. John Pappageorge ® revealed a backup plan in

the swing state of Michigan: " If we do not suppress

the Detroit vote, we're going to have a tough time in

this election, " he said. It is little secret what

Pappageorge meant by the " Detroit vote " #8211; while

Michigan state is majority white (78 percent), Detroit

boasts an overwhelmingly minority population (88

percent). State Sen. Buzz Thomas (D) told reporters,

" I'm extremely disappointed in my

colleague#8230;That's quite clearly 'code' that they

don't want black people to vote in this election. "

 

SAME OLD STORY: The idea the GOP might try to

" suppress " votes is nothing new to minority voters. A

BET/CBS poll shows " more than four in five blacks

believe Bush did not legitimately win the [2000]

election, and two-thirds think deliberate attempts

were made to prevent black voters' ballots from being

counted. "

 

BACK TO MESSING WITH FLORIDA: Earlier this month in

Florida, where President Bush's brother Jeb is

governor, the U.S. Commission on Civil Rights

announced it would ask the Department of Justice to

investigate whether the state's aborted effort to " use

of a flawed database to remove felons from the voter

rolls was a deliberate attempt to block some voters

from casting ballots. " The Miami Herald reported that

this year's list " included people #8211; many of them

black Democrats #8211; who have had their right to

vote restored. "

 

E-MACHINES MEAN NO RECORD: Efforts to suppress votes

could only be aided by the proliferation of touch

screen voting machines. The machines, despite coming

under fire for technical glitches and a lack of

transparency, " are poised for use in the November

elections in more than 675 counties, comprising more

than 30 percent of the nation's registered voters. "

Because many of the machines provide no paper record

of votes, they could make a manual recount of a

contested vote impossible.

 

RIGGING THE SYSTEM: The CEO of the company which will

provide many of the new voting machines is Diebold's

Walden O'Dell, a top Bush fundraiser (Pioneer) who

wrote in a fundraising letter last August that he was

" committed to helping Ohio deliver its electoral votes

to the president next year. " Federal Election

Commission data shows " at least eight million people

will cast their ballots using Diebold machines next

November, " meaning 8 percent of the number of voters

in 2000 will have their 2004 votes calculated on a

machine created by a self-described Bush partisan.

 

STILL STICKING WITH PUNCH CARDS?: Meanwhile, the ACLU

is taking aim at problems with antiquated punch card

ballots, which were the source of controversy during

the 2000 election in Florida. AP reports an ACLU

lawyer in Ohio is " arguing that even isolated

malfunctions in Ohio could change the November

election results in this swing state. " Arguing for the

machines to be judged unconstitutional, the ACLU

maintains " that punch cards are more likely to go

uncounted than votes cast with other systems, and that

use of the ballots violates the rights of black

voters, who mostly live in punch-card counties. "

 

CONTEMPLATING POSTPONEMENT: The Bush administration

has reviewed " a proposal that could allow for the

postponement of the November presidential election " in

the event of a terrorist attack. The Justice

Department was going to move forward with an inquiry

to " determine what the legal mechanism for calling a

halt to a national election would be, " despite the

fact that " Homeland Security Secretary Tom

Ridge#8230;and other counterterrorism officials

concede they have no intel about any specific plots. "

But because of public outcry, the White House has

backed off.

 

 

 

 

 

IRAQ #8211; A " USELESS " WAR: United Nations envoy

Lakhdar Brahimi blasted the invasion of Iraq during an

interview in Austria yesterday. Earlier this year,

President Bush praised Brahimi for his role in setting

up Iraq elections, saying, " We're grateful that Mr.

Brahimi will soon return to Iraq to continue his

important work. " Now, Brahimi has told the Salzburger

Nachrichten, " The war in Iraq was useless, it caused

more problems than it solved, and it brought in

terrorism. "

 

IRAQ #8211; REALITY TV HITS BAGHDAD: More proof

America is having a good influence on Iraq: The

Christian Science Monitor reports reality TV has come

to Iraq. Iraq's first privately owned satellite, Al

Sharqiya, is offering the show, " Labor and Materials, "

billed as the war torn nation's answer to " Extreme

Home Makeover. " In 15-minute episodes, " broken windows

are made whole again. Blasted walls slowly rise again.

Fancy furniture and luxurious carpets appear without

warning in the living rooms of poor families. Over six

weeks, houses blasted by US bombs regenerate in a

home-improvement show for a war-torn country. " And in

true reality show form, the families featured become

instant national celebrities. The popular show is

staffed by " a crew of jolly ex-Baathists " - most of

whom " worked for Saddam Hussein's Ministry of

Information. " Not that there aren't still occasional

hiccups: " Two months ago, Mahdi Army militants

pistol-whipped a Sharqiya cameraman, thinking he was a

Western journalist, and stole his equipment. They gave

it back when they realized he was from an Iraqi

station. "

 

PRISONER ABUSE #8211; REPORT DOES " DAMAGE CONTROL " ON

ABU GHRAIB: USA Today reports the Army, under cover of

the 9/11 report, has released " a hard-to-swallow,

300-page account of the Abu Ghraib prisoner-abuse

scandal, " which concludes " a small number of bad

apples in the military were responsible for 94

incidents of prisoner abuse -- including 20 deaths --

in Iraq and Afghanistan. " The report's findings,

presented at a hastily called and little publicized

meeting by Chairman John Warner (R-VA), are consistent

with Bush administration rhetoric, but contradict the

facts. Evidence suggests the abuses were not merely

the result of " unauthorized actions taken by a few

individuals, " but had their roots in a series of White

House and Justice Department memos spelling out rules

for detainee treatment in Afghanistan. Unlike the

" exhaustive and direct " 9/11 report, however, the Abu

Ghraib report appears less aimed at finding the real

cause of the problem, and more focused on political

" damage control. "

 

HOMELAND SECURITY #8211; VULNERABLE PORTS: The New

York Times makes you think twice about the security of

America's ports this morning. A lack of proper funding

means new port regulations from the Department of

Homeland Security are not being followed; for example,

according to David Arian, president of a California

longshoremen's union, " The specific regulations for

checking seals to ensure integrity of containers and

cargo in them are presently not being enforced. " He

also " said that terminal operators had begun to hire

small numbers of additional workers to handle the

freight backlog but that as many as 13,000 extra full-

and part-time waterfront workers were needed in the

Los Angeles ports alone. " Failure to properly fund

port security will have dangerous consequences.

Stephen E. Flynn, a retired Coast Guard commander and

a maritime security expert at the Council on Foreign

Relations, " contends that cargo containers will one

day be used as 'the poor man's missile' to deliver

devastating weapons to American shores. 'The question

is when, not if,' said Mr. Flynn. "

 

HEALTH CARE #8211; STEM CELL RESEARCH TAKES CENTER

STAGE: The issue of stem cell research will be

highlighted at the Democratic National Convention in

Boston tonight, as former President Ronald Reagan's

son Ron Reagan takes the stage to " explain what many

see as the scientific promise of embryonic stem

cells--highly adaptable cells that many scientists

believe could one day lead to therapies or cures for

Alzheimer's, the disease his father had, as well as

for diabetes and Parkinson's. " The Chicago Tribune

reports, " Few issues touch so many people: Nearly 100

million Americans are believed to have illnesses that

might be aided by stem cell research--or have friends

or family members with such illnesses. " And that list

may have just gotten longer. This week saw a

breakthrough in the use of stem cells in treating

stroke victims.

 

RIGHT-WING INCOHERENT QUOTE OF THE DAY: " My

pretty-girl allies stick out like a sore thumb amongst

the corn-fed, no make-up, natural fiber, no-bra

needing, sandal-wearing, hirsute, somewhat fragrant

hippie chick pie wagons they call 'women' at the

Democratic National Convention. " #8211; Ann Coulter

rant on how the supposed difference between Democratic

women and Republicans. USA Today scrapped the piece,

citing its " basic weaknesses in clarity and

readability that we found unacceptable. "

 

#160;Don't Miss

DAILY TALKING POINTS: Protect Every Vote

 

MEDIA: Michael Moore invites President Bush to

hometown screening of #160;Fahrenheit 9/11 tomorrow

night in Crawford, TX.

 

ELECTION: Veterans and war heroes for John Kerry

 

ECONOMY: Economic Policy Institute looks at the

economy and finds Bush tax cuts aren't working

 

Contact The Progress Report.

 

 

 

 

#160;Daily Grill

 

" And I'm so appreciative of#8230;Mr. Brahimi's work.

It's hard work to do what he did. He did a lot of good

work and came up with what looks like a very strong

government. "

 

#8211; President Bush, 6/1/04

 

VERSUS

 

" The war in Iraq was useless, it caused more problems

than it solved, and it brought in terrorism. "

 

#8211; U.N. envoy Lakhdar Brahimi, 7/26/04

 

#160;Daily Outrage

Starting in 2006, under the White House-sponsored

Medicare legislation, companies rolling back drug

benefits for retirees are still eligible subsidies of

up to $940 per retiree

 

#160;Archives

Progress Report

 

#160;Opportunity

The Center for American Progress is now accepting

intern applications for the fall semester.