A HOUSE RESOLUTION URGING CONGRESS TO ENACT A MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUG BENEFIT.
Whereas, the use of prescription drugs improves the quality of care and helps patients live healthier, longer, and more productive lives while keeping them out of more costly acute care settings in the long term; and
Whereas, the increased use of new and improved prescription drugs has changed the delivery of health care in the United States since Medicare was enacted, and while two-thirds of the Medicare population has some form of prescription drug coverage, although it many times is inadequate, one-third of Medicare beneficiaries have no coverage at all; and
Whereas, Congress did not enact a drug benefit in the Medicare program, therefore the program is inadequate in providing the elderly and disabled the most appropriate drug therapies, preventing the delivery of quality health care at an affordable cost; and
Whereas, the private sector provides affordable coverage by negotiating discounts on drugs and meeting the needs of special populations with chronic diseases and those with co-morbidities through coordinating care with disease management, drug utilization review, and patient education programs, all of which aid in ameliorating medical errors; and
Whereas, comprehensive reform of the Medicare program would utilize the successful tools of the private sector in coordinating care for this population and use the marketplace to foster competition among private plans, resulting in more choices of quality coverage for seniors and the disabled while maintaining the financial sustainability of the program; and
Whereas, Congress' inaction has failed to provide for comprehensive reform of Medicare, encouraging states to use their own resources to ease the burden of their elderly and disabled populations and effectively assume an unfunded, informal mandate; and
Whereas, in implementing state programs to assist the Medicare population, state budgetary constraints can often result in requirements to restrict and limit the patients' access to needed presentation drugs, and enact anticompetitive price controls; Now, therefore,
Be it resolved by the House of Representatives:
SECTION 1.  The House of Representatives urges Congress to enact financially sustainable, voluntary, universal, and privately administered outpatient prescription drug coverage as part of a comprehensive reform of the federal Medicare program.
SECTION 2.  The Principal Clerk shall transmit a copy of this resolution to each member of North Carolina's congressional delegation.
SECTION 3.  This resolution is effective upon adoption.