Thornberry votes for GOP prescription plan

WASHINGTON, DC – US Rep. Mac Thornberry (R-Clarendon) voted last week for a prescription drug coverage plan that, he says, will modernize Medicare without forcing seniors to join a one-size-fits-all government bureaucracy.  The measure passed the House of Representatives by a vote of 217-214.

The bill is called The Medicare Rx 2000 Act.  Modeled after the Federal Employee Health Benefit Program (which is the health care plan for all federal employees), the bill will give seniors the option of either staying with their current health care plan or choosing a prescription drug plan that better fits their needs. 

Under this plan, seniors who choose prescription drug coverage will receive a prescription drug card that can be used at a local pharmacy, through the mail, or even over the Internet.  Wherever they choose to buy their prescriptions, they will receive a discount.

According to Thornberry, the Congressional Budget Office has estimated that the plan will reduce seniors’ drug costs by a s much as 25 percent. 

Just as important, he added, it will do this in a way that gives seniors the option to choose the type of health coverage that best suits them, rather than force them into a one-size-fits-all government bureaucracy – which, he pointed out, is what some of the other plans being discussed would do. 

Thornberry is a member of the House Budget Committee.  In this role, he helped write the budget approved earlier this year, which set aside $40 billion for the kind of prescription drug benefit plan that was approved.

In addition to his efforts in this area, Thornberry has also been working with other members of the Rural Health Care Coalition (on which he serves as a member) to provide rural hospitals with relief from the Medicare cutbacks which have occurred over the past few years.