[Dialogue] Public Interest Groups Call for Corruption Investigation Into Prescription Drug Law

[Harry Wainwright]

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE
MAY 8, 2006
2:55 PM                                     CONTACT: Campaign for America's
Future
Toby Chaudhuri, 202-955-5665

Public Interest Groups Call for Corruption Investigation Into Prescription
Drug Law

WASHINGTON - May 8 - With recent attention focused on lobbying reform in
Congress, two public interest groups today called for an investigation into
how former Rep. Billy Tauzin, R-La., now head of the drug manufacturing
companies' lobby in Washington, inserted language into the drug benefit bill
to help big drug companies while he was negotiating to land a $2 million per
year job as president of PhRMA.

Rep. Marion Berry, D-Ark., who served with Rep. Tauzin on the Medicare
Conference Committee, joined leaders from the two groups - the Campaign for
American's Future and Americans United - on a conference call with reporters
today to discuss a new report of scandals surrounding the Medicare Part D
prescription drug program.

The Campaign for America's Future released a report today that chronicles
how Rep. Tauzin, R-La., former chair of the Congressional committee
overseeing the passage of Part D, worked hard to prohibit Medicare from
negotiating with drug companies to achieve lower prices for seniors.

"The Republican leaders on the committee paid more attention to the
pharmaceutical and insurance companies who contributed millions of dollars
to their campaigns than the needs of our seniors," said Rep. Berry. "There
were even times when these leaders shut my Democratic colleagues and I out
of the room during critical moments in this debate."

Campaign for America's Future co-director Roger Hickey joined Rep. Berry to
release the report on today's call, noting that the failure to negotiate
prices cost Part D an extra $80 billion annually.

"Part D took billions of tax dollars that could have provided a
comprehensive, guaranteed senior citizen drug benefit and put them into the
pockets of the pharmaceutical companies," said Hickey. "The consequences of
his misconduct dwarfs villains like Cunningham and Abramoff."

American's United communications director Brad Woodhouse also joined Rep.
Berry and Hickey on today's call. Woodhouse called Part D a "sell-out to
pharmaceutical manufacturers."

"Part D prohibits Medicare from using its bulk-buying power to negotiate
lower drug prices and denies senior citizens the choice of a prescription
drug benefit direct from Medicare," said Woodhouse. "Part D is better for
industry than it is for pharmacists, senior citizens or patients."

Today's report examines the drug companies' $87 million in federal campaign
contributions between 1998 and 2005, including $1.5 million to George Bush.
Fully 69 percent of industry contributions went to Republicans. Tauzin
himself received $218,000 in drug money between 1989 and his departure.

Former Medicare chief Thomas Scully also receives scrutiny in the report.
Scully received an "ethics waiver" from the Bush administration permitting
him to hunt for his next job while actively negotiating Part D on behalf of
the administration. He immediately left the administration to become a
health industry lobbyist.

NOTE: An electronic copy of today's report is available at
http://www.ourfuture.org. 

-------------- next part --------------
An HTML attachment was scrubbed...
URL: http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/dialogue_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20060510/a47122c3/attachment.htm
-------------- next part --------------
A non-text attachment was scrubbed...
Name: not available
Type: image/gif
Size: 4913 bytes
Desc: not available
Url : http://wedgeblade.net/pipermail/dialogue_wedgeblade.net/attachments/20060510/a47122c3/attachment.gif