Senate begins prescription-drug debate

The US Senate begins a floor debate on prescription drugs this week, according to Senate Majority Leader Tom Daschle, D-S.D., but exactly which bill will be the subject of that debate is yet to be determined.

"We will have a prescription drug debate in July, and I think it'll probably be married to a debate about cost containment as well," Daschle told reporters Wednesday.

Daschle has given the Senate Finance Committee, which oversees Medicare, until July 15 to reach consensus on a bill to add a drug benefit to the program. "What I have said to the Finance Committee is that if we can agree on a vehicle before the 15th, we'll use whatever vehicle the committee has agreed on. If we haven't, we'll go to the floor with another vehicle of some kind or with one of the vehicles before the committee or do something that will trigger the debate."

One possibility, Daschle and aides have hinted, is to take to the floor a bill sponsored by Sens. John McCain, R-Ariz., and Charles Schumer, D-N.Y., that would make it more difficult for brandname drugmakers to prevent generic drugs from coming to market. The Senate Health, Education, Labor and Pensions Committee began work on the measure Wednesday and is expected to approve it Thursday.

But members of the Finance Committee say Daschle is unfairly rushing them to complete work on a highly complicated issue. "I think it's going to be a great big mess if we try to...take the issue away from the Finance Committee and go straight to the floor," said Senate Minority Leader Trent Lott, R-Miss. "It's very complex, got a lot of moving parts to it, and it can be very costly and spiral totally out of control very quickly if you don't really think about what you're doing."

Finance Committee members have been meeting privately all week in an effort to try to merge two competing Medicare prescription drug proposals. One, similar to a bill the House passed late last month, would create a voluntary, freestanding drug benefit that would also include out-of-pocket spending limits on other Medicare-covered benefits. The other, favored by Senate Democrats, would create a drug benefit within Medicare itself.

Finance Committee member James Jeffords, I-Vt., a co-author of the private-sector approach, said a chance remains that the two proposals can be merged before next week. "I'd say it's possible," he said. But committee member John Breaux, D-La., who has been working with Jeffords, disagreed. "There's miles and miles to go," he said.

CONSENSES IS THAT NOTHING WILL HAPPEN THIS YEAR