By Walt Duka
December 2002

The Republican sweep of midterm elections makes it likely that the new session of Congress due to begin next month will produce a GOP-crafted prescription drug benefit.

That was the general view of 10 newly elected lawmakers of both parties interviewed by the AARP Bulletin after Republicans confounded pundits by winning control of the Congress as well as the White House for the first time since 1952.

The victory returned control of the Senate to Republicans, giving them a majority of at least two seats, and increased the margin of their House majority from 13 to at least 18.

"Gridlock as we knew it has been broken," declares Robert D. Reischauer, president of the Urban Institute, a Washington think tank.

In the Bulletin interviews, Republicans expressed confidence their new strength will enable them to enact a drug benefit. But while conceding this possibility, Democrat interviewees generally voiced concern the resulting measure might not give enough help to people who need it.

GOP HOUSE-PASSED DRUG BILL: "A GOOD STARTING POINT" FOR NEW EFFORT
Republican Sen.-elect John Cornyn of Texas charges that the previous Senate used prescription drugs "as a political football." He says the new majority will end that. "No solution," he concedes, "is going to satisfy everybody, but it's certainly much better than doing nothing."

Expressing a widespread GOP view, Sen.-elect John E. Sununu of New Hampshire sees the drug bill passed last summer by the House as a good starting point for the latest effort. Under that measure, private insurers would administer the benefit, and competition would be relied on to keep costs down.

Sununu calls the House bill "sound legislation… that created a sound plan." He says Medicare costs have to be driven down and that "government monopolization of Medicare" hasn't done the job.

In contrast, most Democrats favor a broader, government-run drug program within Medicare that would provide bigger benefits. "I worry," says Raúl Grijalva, congressman-elect from Arizona, "that the 'new-and-improved bill' [in the House] could end up being worse than what we had before. I think it will be a stingier bill [and] more protective of business and pharmaceutical interests."

Politicians agree the federal budget situation and growing deficits will heavily influence the drug debate.

Chris Van Hollen, Democratic congressman-elect from Maryland, puts it this way: "There's no way you can be serious about providing prescription drug coverage—real prescription drug coverage—and at the same time not revisit portions of the out-year [2003 to 2011] tax cut."

Yet Steve Pearce, Republican congressman-elect from New Mexico, says House Speaker Dennis Hastert, R-Ill., has assured him there will be enough money in the budget for the GOP drug plan. The Democrats' plan, he says, would cost too much.

The Urban Institute's Reischauer sets the odds on enacting a drug benefit at 80 percent but adds, "It's no slam-dunk." He says Senate Democrats could block bills they don't like.

AARP COLLECTS PLEDGES: BACKING FOR STRONG DRUG BILL
In the run-up to the election, AARP collected pledges from 162 congressional candidates to support a strong drug measure in the coming session. An AARP election poll also found that 69 percent of prospective older voters said concern over a Medicare drug benefit would be a major factor in how they voted.

AARP policy director John Rother says AARP will use these results to push for a strong drug benefit. While acknowledging that the condition of the federal budget is an enormous factor, he says, "Congress must realize that the high cost of drugs is imposing growing hardship on millions of older citizens and that a Band-Aid approach just won't be adequate."

The AARP poll found that protecting Social Security was the most important issue in the election for voters age 45 and older. But almost all the new lawmakers interviewed by the Bulletin believe the president's plan for individual accounts will not fly in the new Congress.

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Scott Garrett, new Republican congressman from New Jersey, supports individual accounts as an option for young workers, but says "we should not be doing anything to lower the benefits for retirees now or in the future, nor should we be doing anything to raise the retirement age." And in the coming session, he adds, "I doubt you'll see any real legislation [on] investment accounts, quite frankly."

And Democrat Mark Pryor, senator-elect from Arkansas, tells the Bulletin he is "very opposed" to individual accounts financed from the current payroll tax. "I think it is a bad idea," he says. He believes there is no way the accounts could be set up without causing benefit cuts.

LIVING AT HOME: HOPE FOR LONG-TERM CARE
Concern over long-term care for older Americans figures prominently in the thinking of the new lawmakers.

Republican Sen.-elect Elizabeth Dole, from North Carolina, calls it "a critical question facing our nation."

"One of the first things we can do," she tells the Bulletin, "is make it possible for people to live at home longer." Toward this end she favors increasing Medicare allowances for physical and speech therapy and providing ample funding to train nurses to care for the elderly.

The need for quality long-term care hits home personally for Linda Sanchez, a Democrat and new representative from California, who says her father is the early stages of Alzheimer's disease. Like Dole, she favors measures to reduce the nursing shortage.

AARP Bulletin Senior Editor Trish Nicholson and freelance writers Lynn O'Shaughnessy, Anne Wright and Pat Maio contributed to this article.