SCORES VICTORY AGAINST SOCIALIZED MEDICINE
A coalition of Democratic and Republican senators defeated a bill in the Senate November 16 proposing to use public funds to cover the cost of medicines exceeding $25 a year for persons over the age of sixty-five in the United States.
Hospitalization and other medical benefits are taken care of for elderly people in the U.S. under the provisions of the Medicare law but they must still pay for medicines used at home. At the exorbitant prices charged for drugs, many of them find this to be a major expense.
Senator Joseph M. Montoya, Democrat of New Mexico, who sponsored the measure, said that it would take not more than $220 million a year to cover the total proposed expenditure.
Senator John J. Williams, Republican of Delaware, who opposed helping the elderly in this way, said the cost would be around $690 million.
The U.S. government is at present spending $82 million a day for the war in Vietnam. Thus, even if Senator Williams were correct, medicine for all the senior citizens in the U.S. in excess of $25 for each one could be covered by a little
more than what it costs the taxpayers to
keep up the war in Vietnam for a single
week.
The paltry concession to sick peo-
ple over sixty-five was opposed by the
pharmaceutical interests, who have a
powerful lobby in Washington. They were
particularly aroused by a provision in
the measure that would have required
doctors to use the generic names of drugs
in writing out prescriptions instead of
the brand names which drug houses put on
the products they package.
The utilization of enigmatic brand
names facilitates charging fantastic
prices for drugs that may cost only a
few cents to manufacture.
Consequently, defeat of the bill
assured continuation of the exorbitant
profits which the pharmaceutical trust is
accustomed to make at the expense of the
aged suffering from illness. Compelling
old people in the United States to pay for
their medicine is just as much a part of
the American Way of Life as sending free
medicine to the old people in North Viet-
nam in the form of napalm, high explo-
sives and antipersonnel bombs.