If I were America's economic Dr. Ruth, I would write a prescription for our ailing economy to be filled as soon as Congress convenes in the new year. My prescription would call for something President Bush and Republicans and Democrats in Congress have already promised America's families — comprehensive prescription drug reform that ensures access to affordable prescription drugs.
Economic stimulus is all about increasing consumption and were America's families able to spend less on prescription drugs they could spend more stimulating the rest of the economy. Health care costs are expected to increase 16% in Oregon in 2002, taking even more money out of the rest of the economy. Outrageous prescription drug costs are driving all health care costs out of control, hurting employers and workers and hindering our economic recovery.
Pharmaceuticals like to defend their high costs with false statements about those costs reflecting their research and development costs. The truth is that they spend far more on advertising their current drugs than they do on developing new ones. When you see those lovely advertisements for purple pills, remember that you are paying for that ad every time you fill a prescription. And of course, those ads are persuading people to seek prescriptions that they may not even need.
Congress passed the President's tax cuts early in 2001, giving trillions in tax breaks to America's wealthiest families and eliminating the inheritance tax -- a tax paid by only one percent of the people. Despite the absence of a single family farm ever being lost due to inheritance taxes, the canard of saving the family farm was used to cover a huge tax giveaway that benefits only the wealthy. If the Administration can find trillions to give away to the wealthy, it should have no trouble finding the money for prescription drug reform — unless their goal was to give away the store first in order to make it impossible to help ordinary American families. The current push by the Administration to pass even more tax cuts and accelerate the 2001 cuts, despite the additional expenses for Homeland Security, the war in Afghanistan and the anticipated federal deficit, could lead a person to believe that his goal is to empty the Treasury. Then there would be nothing left for American families — nothing in Medicare, nothing in Social Security and, of course, nothing to address the prescription drug crisis.
The Administration proposal for additional tax cuts must be stopped. Nothing he is proposing will have a significant stimulus effect on the economy; it will simply increase future deficits and constrain the government's ability to fulfill America's needs at home and abroad. Instead of giving away the store to multi-national corporations, we need to invest our money at home in the health and well-being of American families. Prescription drug reform is a good first step.
RuthAlice Anderson
President, Oregon Action