[Pharm-policy] Merck Plays a Pivotal Role in GOP Proposal on Medicare Drug Benefits

[James Love]

June 30, 2000



Merck Plays a Pivotal Role in GOP
Proposal on Medicare Drug Benefits

By SHAILAGH MURRAY 
Staff Reporter of THE WALL STREET JOURNAL

WASHINGTON -- The House's narrow approval of a Republican-backed
Medicare prescription-drug plan was a hard-fought victory for Merck &
Co.


  [snip]
        
Merck's role surfaced in recent days as Republican House leaders tried
to unite reluctant colleagues behind a drug plan that Merck strongly
favored. To quell charges from Democrats that no private insurer wanted
to offer a drug-only benefit, GOP leaders circulated a letter showing
that Merck's pharmacy-benefit subsidiary, Merck-Medco Managed Care, was
eager to create a nationwide plan.


   [snip]
         
Rep. Bill Thomas (R., Calif.), who sponsored the House GOP bill,
released the Merck-Medco pledge midway through a contentious Ways and
Means Committee hearing last week. "It says, we're ready to go," Mr.
Thomas declared, as staffers distributed to a packed committee room the
four-paragraph letter from Merck-Medco Chairman Per Lofberg.
Democratssat stone-faced, having argued for days that the Republican
plan would leave seniors stranded because insurance companies didn't
want to participate.

The timing of the letter couldn't have been better. Conservative
Republicans had been wavering over the Thomas plan, and the resistance
from the GOP-friendly insurance industry was a compelling reason to vote
against it.  As he waited for the final vote Wednesday, Mr. Thomas said,
"the fact that a company that provides benefits to 52 million people was
willing to support it, that was significant." Even members of Congress,
he noted, get their drug benefits through Merck-Medco.

   [snip]


  Write to Shailagh Murray at shailagh.murray@wsj.com

=======================================================
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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