Bargaining for lower drug prices.(Medicare drug discount card program)

In my compact New York City apartment, there are practical considerations to buying a 12-pack of paper towels, like where will we put the now-displaced vacuum cleaner? So it's rare we get to take advantage of the cost savings of buying in bulk. The federal government has no such excuse when it comes to a far more expensive commodity: prescription drugs. And yet it hasn't tried to lower drug prices in the Medicare system by negotiating for bulk discounts.

How is it that the government's Medicare administrators don't exercise their clout the way ordinary consumers do? Congress and the White House don't have to look far to find a role model: The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs routinely bargains for, and gets, lower drug prices for its 5.2 million beneficiaries. A September report from Families U.S.A., a nonprofit health-care advocacy group, found that the lowest price a consumer could get with a Medicare discount card was almost always much higher than the lowest price negotiated by the VA. While the report was based on the soon-to-end Medicare drug discount card program, Consumers Union, the publisher of CONSUMER REPORTS, expects that, in general, the Medicare prescription drug plans that will go into effect in January will not do much better.

When Congress overhauled Medicare, providing limited prescription drug coverage for seniors, pharmaceutical companies successfully pushed through a provision that bars Medicare from negotiating lower prices. Instead, what seniors got was Medicare Part D, a flawed system that leaves big gaps in coverage and requires seniors to choose among dozens of ...