Public Cool to Medicare Drug Bills, Survey Finds

By Julie Rovner

WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) - As negotiators from the US House and Senate settle down to try to resolve the differences between the Medicare prescription drug bills passed by each chamber in June, a new poll suggests the public is likely to be unhappy with whatever final product emerges from the talks.

The survey was conducted by the Kaiser Family Foundation and Harvard School of Public Health.

After being told that the bills would allocate $400 billion to a new outpatient prescription drug benefit over the next decade, but both would also leave many seniors still paying more than half the cost of their medications, 57 percent of those surveyed said Congress should scrap the current bill.

In fact, the poll found, only a small proportion of the public has any idea that there are major differences between the House and Senate bills, much less what those differences are. Nearly 70 percent of seniors said they did not know whether the differences between the House and Senate-passed measures are large, small, or nonexistent.

One thing the public does support, according to the poll, is for Congress to make it easier for Americans to purchase drugs from Canada , where medications often sell for a fraction of their U.S. prices. Even after being told that easing current restrictions "could lead to unsafe drugs being imported into the country," 63 percent of those surveyed said they still favored the change.

 

Full Study available at: http://www.kff.org/content/2003/20030903a/