Gema G. Hernández

American taxpayers are paying for research and development of new medication that we will never have the opportunity to use. While we continue to support with our taxes, like we should, new and exciting disease management approaches, our government is building barriers that prevent us from using the latest medications approved by the Food and Drug Administration, but inaccessible to the American public. It is important to remember that the majority of the innovative new drugs in the market today come from government funded research and not from findings in the private pharmaceutical companies.

The Bush administration, both in the State of Florida and at the national level, has done an excellent job building barriers to health care, invisible barriers to the public eye, but real barriers when it comes to accessing medical care, affordable prescription drugs and in home services for the most vulnerable citizens among us. To make sure the administration stays the course, the pharmaceutical companies have invested 22 million dollars in political campaigns, 80% of the contributions going to the Republican Party.

They have also hired 526 lobbyists to make sure the re importation of prescription drugs from Canada will not pass a congressional vote. Jointly, the administration and the pharmaceutical companies have managed to deny the American people one of the fundamental rights explicitly stated in the Older Americans Act, the right to quality care, which means the right to obtain the latest medications for our illnesses.

It is unfortunate that the most devastating effects of the Medicare Modernization Act in reference to the cost to be bone by the elders and the access to new prescription drugs will occur in 2005, months after the election. From 2005 to 2006 the Medicare Modernization Act’s “automatic built in” budget cuts will begin to manifest themselves, and will come at a time when programs for elders and disabled adults will also be facing elimination in favor of a new and “improved” centralized Managed Care approach in the hands of big HMOs. Never mind that some of the big HMOs that will be getting exclusive contracts are the same companies that three years ago began abandoning certain geographical areas nationwide. Never mind that these big HMOs have prescription drug formularies that on purpose eliminate the inclusion of the latest medical advances.

Forcing elders to enroll in Managed Care plans designed principally to manage costs and deny care is against the President’s Freedom of Choice initiative, but this contradiction in the administration’s health care policy is not the only contradiction. One of the most obvious flip flops in the administration’s health care policy is exemplified by the Terry Schiavo case in Florida, who by the way is still alive against the wishes of her husband and after the courts have given the husband permission to allow her dying process to come to an end. While the administration’s position is that they want government out of peoples’ lives, they have gone ahead and mingled in the most intimate decision people can make, their right to die in peace.

If the administration’s way to protect the sanctity of life is to keep us alive regardless of our wishes perhaps we should be allowed to purchase medication to better deal with our pain and chronic conditions. The “new” FDA approved medications that are not covered in most of the insurance formularies are being used all around the world except in the country that paid for their research and development.

If the administration’s plan is to keep us alive in a permanent vegetative stage forever and ever we should have the option of buying FDA approved medication in Canada that could help prevent or could help us cope with certain conditions, increasing our quality of life, or as I see it in the case of Terry Schiavo, the quality of her dying process.

American elders, disabled adults and families should be given access to FDA approved medication that can enhance their quality of life instead of being forced to get only those medications their HMOs include in their health plans. The Medicare Modernization Act discount drug card will perpetuate the denial of medical advances. Therefore, it is important for the American public to know that in some cases the medications included in their insurance plans have already been replaced by new medications which contain the latest medical knowledge, but because of cost they failed to be listed in the health care coverage.

Why should we pay for medical and pharmaceutical research designed to find cures of chronic conditions and ease the pain while at the same time be prevented from getting access to the latest advances due to insurance companies’ approved government formularies? Our doctors should be allowed to treat us with the best disease management techniques available and not be forced to limit their drug selection and treatment options to formularies that in 90% of the cases do not include the advances of the last few years.

Individuals with Alzheimer’s, Parkinson’s, Heart conditions just to mention a few illnesses should have equal access to new treatment, new cures and new medications that will make their lives and the lives of their entire families more bearable. While administration officials are getting very lucrative jobs in the same health care and pharmaceutical companies they used to regulate, citizens of the most powerful country in the world are denied access to the same medication they financially helped to create.