Kerry pitches prescription plan to Nevada senior citizens
Touts Canada as cheaper source
HENDERSON, Nev. -- "Dr. Kerry is here to cure y'all!"
So John F. Kerry began a politically charged house call on 200 Nevada senior citizens yesterday, bringing with him a proposed remedy to high prescription drug prices that includes ousting President Bush and importing cheaper drugs from Canada in bulk quantities.
During the hourlong gathering in Henderson, Nevada's second-largest city and home to many retirees, the Democrats' presidential nominee unleashed a volley of attacks on Bush. Kerry devoted a second day to courting Nevada voters, who backed Bush in 2000.
Kerry accused Bush of creating a monopoly for pharmaceutical companies that has pushed up prices for prescription drugs, at one point ticking off the US retail prices for four medications -- Prevacid, Celebrex, Zocor, and Plavix -- that were between 157 and 243 percent higher than in Canada, drawing boos and hisses with each comparison. The Massachusetts senator said he would "plug the hole" in the new prescription-drug benefit under the federal Medicare program for the elderly and disabled by allowing importation of medications certified as safe by the Food and Drug Administration, and he chastised Bush for not insisting on that provision in the first place.
"George Bush stood in the way of that. George Bush stood right there and said, 'Nope, we're not going to help people to have lower costs drugs in America; we're going to help the big drug companies get a great big windfall.' And I think that's the wrong priority for America," Kerry said.
"This isn't fair competition; it's a monopoly, and it's been put in place by George Bush and his friends, and it's costing you a whole bunch of extra money, and it's wrong, it's fundamentally wrong," he continued, drawing a loud ovation.
Both the Kerry and Bush campaigns see prescription drugs as an issue to run on: Kerry pollster Mark Mellman released a strategy memo yesterday citing a Kaiser Family Foundation poll in June that indicated most seniors rated the cost of health insurance and prescription drugs as at least "somewhat important" in deciding how they vote. The White House, in turn, released a statement noting that about 1 million low-income Americans have qualified for a new Medicare benefit of $600 a year to help buy their drugs.
Kerry opposed the new drug benefit in a series of Senate procedural votes but did not attend the final vote on the bill, an absence that drew fire yesterday from Representative Bill Thomas, chairman of the House Ways and Means Committee, who spoke to reporters on a conference call organized by Bush's campaign.
"He was AWOL throughout the entire process, and now he has ideas that would supposedly be very simple to do?" Thomas said, noting that Kerry -- a member of the Senate Finance Committee, which has jurisdiction over Medicare -- did not consult with him on the drug benefit. On importing drugs from Canada, Thomas said the idea holds some appeal but is more complicated to institute than Kerry suggested and might lead to Canadians jacking up drug prices and erasing potential savings.
Several audience members described their own struggles with drug prices for Kerry, and one woman fought off tears as she described the lack of affordable, quality mental health care. After thanking her for speaking out, Kerry said he would press for greater coverage for mental health, but it was his wife, Teresa Heinz Kerry, who offered a longer, more personal answer.
She said there were too many medical studies focused on men and then said that stress studies showed women wanted to "tend and mend" problems while men preferred to ignore them and would shut down when women pressed them to open up.
"They want to go watch a football game rather than just talk," Heinz Kerry said.
At the Henderson event, Kerry also received the endorsement of the 3 million-member Alliance for Retired Americans.
Patrick Healy can be reached at phealy@globe.com. 