Group Wants Congress to Enforce Health Industry Promises
Back in May, groups from the health care sector agreed to cut the growth of health care costs by $2 trillion. In June, the pharmaceutical industry promised to spend $80 billion over the next decade improving drug benefits for seniors. In exchange for this voluntary cooperation, the industry groups expect that Congress will not shoulder them with any more of the financial burden for health care reform.
These informal agreements are not good enough for the National Coalition on Health Care, the New York Times reports. The nonpartisan, nonprofit group is calling on Congress to include a trigger mechanism in health care legislation that would enforce new regulations on industry if the groups failed to meet their end of the deal after a certain period of time. The regulations would force cost savings out of the industries if they were to prove unwilling to cut costs themselves.
Industry groups like drug manufacturers have "at best given lip service" to the idea of cutting health care costs, the coalition reportedly said. Meanwhile, they stand to benefit handsomely from some of the new rules Congress plans on implementing.
The coalition, founded in 1990, is comprised of more than 70 organizations. Its honorary co-chairs are former Presidents George H.W. Bush and Jimmy Carter, and its co-chairmen are former Governor Robert Ray (R-Iowa) and former Congressman Robert Edgar (D-Penn.).
Meanwhile, a new report shows that the drug and insurance industries have spent huge sums of money this year to influence health care legislation, USA Today reports. The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, for instance, reported nearly $7 million in lobbying expenses from July through September of 2009.
Even if Congress manages to pass a health care bill, industry groups will continue to lobby Capitol Hill to see that the new laws are implemented to work in their favor, the Hill newspaper reports.
"If we were to pass this bad boy, we're going to be working on this thing for 10 years solid," one health care lobbyist told the Hill. "There's going to be one mother of a fix-it bill before 2013."