Columnist Benjamin Grove: Senate could try again on senior prescriptions

Benjamin Grove

Friday, Aug. 2, 2002 | 4:04 a.m.

IT'S BEEN A LONG, hot summer in both Washington and Nevada when it comes to health care issues.

While state lawmakers in Carson City last week forged a new medical malpractice law, the U.S. Senate failed in yet another attempt to make prescription medications more affordable for seniors.

Senators spent nearly three weeks of a steamy July slogging through debate on three different drug plans.

Nevada Sens. Harry Reid, D-Nev., and John Ensign, R-Nev., were in the thick of the fray -- Reid as the No. 2 Democrat defending a Democratic proposal; Ensign championing the GOP plan he introduced with Sen. Chuck Hagel, R-Neb.

Under Ensign's bill, seniors with incomes of $17,720 a year or less would pay up to $1,500 a year for prescription drugs, then only 10 percent of drug costs after that. The plan set higher caps for higher-income bracket seniors. Ensign said the bill gave the elderly relief without breaking the federal budget.

Reid and other Democrats led by Sen. Ted Kennedy, D-Mass., proposed spending $450 billion to save seniors even more money. A third "tripartisan" bill authored by Sen. James Jeffords, I-Vt., offered a mid-priced compromise.

After much debate and behind-the-scenes scrambling for votes, the Senate shot down all three plans. Under the rules of debate, each proposal needed 60 votes. None got close. Ensign's bill received 51.

That set the scene last week as Democrats tried to forge a last-ditch compromise. The GOP-controlled House, which passed its own legislation in June, had already recessed for the traditional August break. Senators were eager to split town, too. But the heat was on to reach some kind of deal senators could take back to voters.

By Wednesday, however, it was clear 60 senators still could not agree.

The compromise fizzled. Senators went home for the month.

It's unclear if lawmakers will try yet again when they return from the summer break. They have a lot of budget issues to finalize before Congress adjourns in the fall for the year.

But key senators, including Reid and Ensign, want to try again. They expect to hear an earful from seniors during the August recess.

"If there is enough outrage among the people at home, I think we'll see it again," Reid said.

Lawmakers will face the likes of Las Vegas resident Charlotte Norberg, 59, who suffers lung ailments, including emphysema. Her monthly rent ($548) and nine prescriptions ($500) are more than her $892 income. Norberg pays for four of the prescriptions and gets by collecting samples from doctors for the others. She takes half the daily dose to make the pills last twice as long.

Ensign's bill is designed for seniors 65 and older, but Norberg would likely qualify for help under the legislation because she is disabled, his staffers said. An avid Ensign supporter, Norberg first called his office a year ago, urging him to help Congress find a solution.

"They just keep bickering back and forth," Norberg said. "I think they should take care of things."

Ensign and Hagel plan to put their staffs to work over the break to cobble together something 60 senators could accept, making the Ensign-Hagel bill "a little more generous but still within the budget," Ensign said. He's reaching out to several key Democrats, he said. During a brief chat Wednesday, President Bush personally urged Ensign to keep at it, Ensign said.

"How much longer can she wait?" Ensign asked, referring to Norberg.

Deep philosophical differences still divide the two parties over the federal government's role in paying the skyrocketing cost of prescription drugs. The complex debate has dragged on for five years with no big breakthroughs.

Perhaps cooler heads will prevail in the nation's capital when lawmakers return to the breezes of September.

Seasons change in Washington. Maybe politicians can, too.