Senate Takes On Prescription Drugs

Struggling to make progress on an issue crucial to the fall elections, the Senate moved to a long-awaited debate over rising prescription drug costs.

Senators agreed in a 99-0 vote Wednesday to begin debate on the main bill, a measure that would ease access to generic drugs. Lawmakers are generally supportive of the generic drug bill, but huge fights loom over related drug issues lawmakers want to add to the bill, like how to provide a drug benefit for senior citizens under Medicare.

"I don't claim that this legislation solves the problem of providing prescription drugs for all Americans," said Sen. John McCain, R-Ariz. and a sponsor of the generic drug bill with Sen. Charles Schumer, D-N.Y. "But this is a very important step in the right direction in lowering the cost of prescription drugs to all Americans."

Still, lawmakers are struggling for votes to pass a Medicare prescription drug benefit they had hoped would be the highlight of the debate and win them favor among senior citizens who vote disproportionately in midterm elections.

"I realize that not to get it done would put the Senate in a bad light," Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle said Tuesday. Debate is expected to last two weeks.

Several Medicare bills have been introduced. Among the more prominent are a proposal backed by Senate Democrats estimated to cost up to $500 billion over 10 years and a $370 billion plan offered by several Republicans, a Democrat and the Senate's lone independent.

A proposal will need to get 60 votes for passage.

"We are going to pass legislation," Daschle said. "If we don't do it in two weeks, we'll do it in three. If we don't do it in three, we'll do it in four. If we don't do it in four, we'll do it in five, but we will do it because it's that important."

But Senate Republican Leader Trent Lott accused Democrats of not really wanting to pass a bill. "We're headed for a situation where when the smoke clears next week no package will have passed," Lott said. "We seem to be striving for a way not to do this."

The main bill is a measure aimed at speeding generic drugs to the market by limiting brand-name pharmaceutical companies' use of patent laws to thwart generic competition.

It is unlikely the Senate will take up the Medicare benefit issue until next week so that senators trying to negotiate a compromise have more time, aides have said.

Instead, the first amendment offered will be a proposal by Sen. Byron Dorgan, D-N.D., to allow drugstores and medical distributors to buy drugs made and approved in the United States in certain countries where they are sold more cheaply and resell them in the United States.

Congress passed the importation measure in 2000 but officials in both the Clinton and Bush administrations declined to implement it, saying counterfeit medicines might slip through.

Another amendment scheduled to come up early in the debate is a proposal by Sen. Debbie Stabenow, D-Mich., that would give states the legal authority to create the "preferred drug lists" for Medicaid patients.

The pharmaceutical industry earlier this month filed a federal lawsuit to stop Michigan and other states from the practice which allows for states to create the preferred drug lists and then demand steep discounts from companies that want on the list.

Lawmakers are generally supportive of the generic drug bill, an expansion of a 1984 law aimed at encouraging lower-cost generic drugs. Complaints have arisen that big drug companies have used repeated 30-month stays allowed under that law to keep generic versions off the market.

The legislation would limit brand name drug companies to just one 30-month stay for patents filed on a drug.

Republicans are expected, however, to challenge portions of the legislation that give generic companies the ability to challenge patents in court. Democrats say the provision is needed to give generic companies the power to challenge many of the frivolous patents that companies file to maintain a hold on the market.

The House has already passed a $320 billion Medicare prescription drug benefit.