[Pharm-policy] Broder in NYT: Pharmaceutical Industry Steps Up Efforts to Kill Medicare Drug Plan

[James Love]

http://www.nytimes.com/library/politics/062800medicare-lobby.html
New York Times
June 28, 2000

Pharmaceutical Industry Steps Up Efforts to Kill Medicare Drug Plan
By JOHN M. BRODER
   
WASHINGTON, June 27 -- First, the drug makers rolled out advertisements
featuring "Flo," an arthritic bowler who warned against a Clinton
administration proposal for a new Medicare prescription drug benefit. 
Now the industry is enticing twenty-somethings to call their
grandparents and urge them to lobby against the Clinton drug plan. 
The global drug industry, operating through a group that can legally
conceal the source of its money and the targets of its spending, has
accelerated its lobbying against the administration's drug proposal,
which it contends will lead to price controls and throttle
pharmaceutical research. The stepped-up campaign coincides with a vote
in the House as early as Wednesday on competing Republican and
Democratic Medicare drug proposals. 

Citizens for Better Medicare, a group created a year ago by drug
manufacturers under a provision in the tax law that exempts it from
disclosure of its activities, has spent more than $2 million in the past
three weeks on radio and television advertisements opposing the
administration's drug proposal, according to the Democratic National
Committee, which is tracking the group's advertising. 

Last month, Citizens for Better Medicare tried to draw young visitors to
its Web sites by offering free $10 calling cards to telephone their
grandparents to talk about Medicare drug coverage. Demand for the free
cards was so great that the group is now asking people to call their
grandparents "on your own dime." 

Since its inception last July, Citizens for Better Medicare has spent
more than $30 million on television advertising alone and unknown
amounts on radio, print and Internet advertising, according to analysis
by the Democratic National Committee of the advertising purchases of the
recent television spots are running in the same regions of the country
as a new D.N.C. ad campaign advocating the administration's prescription
drug plan. 

The group operates under a tax provision that allows it to engage in
issue advocacy but not to campaign for or against candidates. But it has
targeted its advertising to the districts of a number of Democrats who
support expanded Medicare drug benefits, skating close to the rule that
prohibits direct involvement in elections. 


  [SNIP]


Critics say the group is little more than a front organization for the
drug industry that is lobbying to kill drug benefits while also offering
a vague compromise plan that has little support in Congress. 

   [SNIP]

Timothy C. Ryan, the executive director of Citizens for Better Medicare,
acknowledged that the majority of the group's money comes from drug
makers, but said the aim was not to thwart legislation, only to insure
that any drug plan not create a costly new bureaucracy or lead to
government price controls on medicine. 

   [snip]

Citizens for Better Medicare describes itself on its web site as a
broad-based coalition of "patients, seniors, pharmaceutical research
companies, doctors, caregivers, hospitals, employers and health care
experts." The group lists more than 40 members, including the well-known
National Association of Manufacturers and the United States Chamber of
Commerce. 

Lesser-known members include the Alliance for Aging Research; the
Alliance for Lung Cancer Advocacy, Support and Education; the
Association of Black Cardiologists; the Healthcare Marketing &
Communications Council and the Kidney Cancer Association. All receive
substantial support from drug companies, according to a study published
last week by Public Citizen, a group founded by Ralph Nader. 

Citizens for Better Medicare was established as the lobbying and grass
roots organizing arm of the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers
Association Mr. Ryan left the association, where he served as marketing
director, to lead Citizens for Better Medicare last summer. 

"It was a phony coalition when it was started and it's a phony coalition
now," said Martin A. Corry, director of federal affairs for the American
Association of Retired Persons. "They were created by the pharmaceutical
industry and are almost entirely funded by the pharmaceutical industry.
They're not fooling anybody." 

Citizens for Better Medicare was set up under Section 527 of the
Internal Revenue Code, which governs political activity by non-profit
organizations. It does not have to report its income or divulge its
spending, so long as it sticks to issue advocacy and does not advocate
the election or defeat of candidates. 

Such groups can accept money from any source, including foreign
corporations and individuals. Several of the biggest members of the
pharmaceutical association are the United States subsidiaries of
European pharmaceutical concerns, including Bayer A.G., Boehringer
Ingelheim Pharmaceuticals Inc., Glaxo Wellcome P.L.C., Hoechst Marion
Roussel A.G. and Rhone-Poulenc Rorer Inc. 

Citizens for Better Medicare is one of the prime targets of members of
Congress who have introduced legislation to require greater disclosure
by so-called 527 groups. 

In its advertising, Citizens for Better Medicare has targeted a number
of House Democrats who co-sponsored a bill that would require drug
companies to offer discounts to pharmacies for medicines they sell to
Medicare recipients. The advertisements name Reps. Leonard Boswell of
Iowa, Darlene Hooley of Oregon, Bill Luther of Minnesota and Mark Udall
of Colorado, but stop short of telling viewers to vote against them. 

But the group reserved particular wrath for Brian Schweitzer of Montana,
a rancher and first-time candidate who is challenging Sen. Conrad Burns,
the two-term incumbent Republican. 

Mr. Schweitzer last winter led a widely-publicized bus trip of seniors
to Canada to dramatize the much lower cost of prescribed medicines
there. Citizens for Better Medicare responded with an ad broadcast
across Montana. "Brian Schweitzer wants Canadian-style
government-controlled health care on prescription medications here in
America," the narrator intoned. "Tell Brian Schweitzer no thanks." 

Mr. Ryan called Mr. Schweitzer's bus trip a "stunt" and said that the
drug industry wanted to explain that drugs were cheaper in Canada
because Canada imposes price controls under its national health system. 

But Mr. Schweitzer said the industry's tactic backfired, boosting his
name recognition and creating a groundswell of support. 

"It was clear what they were trying to do -- prop up the failing
reelection bid of Conrad Burns," Mr. Schweitzer said in a telephone
interview. He estimated that Citizens for Better Medicare has spent
between $500,000 and $750,000 in radio and television advertising in
Montana, including $60,000 in radio ads last week alone. 

    [snip]

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James Love, Director           | http://www.cptech.org
Consumer Project on Technology | mailto:love@cptech.org 
P.O. Box 19367                 | voice: 1.202.387.8030
Washington, DC 20036           | fax:   1.202.234.5176
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