Newsweek Poll: Fixing senior drug prices & minimum wage is more important than investigations

[Bucky]

A poll conducted last week for Newsweek explored what issues voters consider should be "top priorities" vs "lower priorities" for Congress to tackle. The findings for top priorities are below (with the percentage of those saying "don't do it at all" in parentheses in the back):

75% - Allowing the gov't to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies to lower drug prices for seniors (7%)
68% - Increasing the minimum wage (10%)
60% - Investigating government contracts in Iraq (10%)
55% - Investigating charges of impropriety or wrong-doing by members of Congress (9%)
53% - Cutting the interest rate on federal student loans (8%)
52% - New rules to limit the influence of lobbyists (10%)
50% - Enacting all the recommendations of the 9/11 commission (6%)
49% - Investigating questions about the decision to go to war with Iraq (23%)
48% - Broadening the kinds of stem cell research that can receive federal funding (17%)
40% - Rolling back some of the Bush tax cuts (24%)
25% - Impeaching George W. Bush (50%)

One hopeful sign in there: they're being called the "Bush tax cuts" and not only did 40% call them a top priority, but another 32% said it was a "lower" priority. Can you imagine how bad it's got to get before a whopping 72% majority of the voters are calling for a tax hike? I mean, it's sad how bad it's gotta get before people start treating their public debt as a real problem, but I'm really optimistic that people are waking up to what a huge problem these annual monster deficits are.

I suppose some of you will want to talk about how low the support is for impeaching Bush (ironically, many of such people are not Dick Cheney fans), but FWIW, 23% call it a lower priority and only 50% of respondents said it should not be done at all.

[otohara]

1. Yet Theres This From WP - Success of drug plan challenges Democrats

Effectiveness of Medicare benefit may take starch out of campaign thrust...

By Lori Montgomery and Christopher Lee

Updated: 2:10 a.m. MT Nov 26, 2006
It sounded simple enough on the campaign trail: Free the government to negotiate lower drug prices and use the savings to plug a big gap in Medicare's new prescription-drug benefit. But as Democrats prepare to take control of Congress, they are struggling to keep that promise without wrecking a program that has proven cheaper and more popular than anyone imagined.

House Democrats have vowed to act quickly after taking power in January to lift a ban on Medicare negotiations with drug makers, which they hope will save as much as $190 billion over a decade. But House leaders have yet to settle on a strategy and acknowledge that negotiation is, in any case, unlikely to generate sufficient savings to fill the "doughnut hole," the much-criticized gap in coverage that forces millions of seniors to pay 100 percent of drug costs for a few weeks or months each year.

Drug-company lobbyists, Bush administration officials and many congressional Republicans are preparing to block any effort to increase federal control over drug prices, saying the Medicare benefit is working well. They contend that instead of saving money, government negotiations could raise drug prices for all consumers while limiting choices for people on Medicare.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15898613/

Also, I read the head of AARP thinks this plan is just peachy. How can negotiating lower drug prices now be a bad thing?

[Bucky]

2. "a program that has proven cheaper and more popular than anyone imagined"

There are thousands of seniors going without their prescribed medications because of this "popular" plan. I don't know who Lori Montgomery and Christopher Lee are, but I know who they work for. Bush's prescription plan is a bust, and the bustees are low income seniors.

[hashibabba]

7. According to this Rx plan, if I hadn't qualified for *special help*

I would have hit the doughnut hole in August. That would leave me four months of trying to come up with neearly $500 a month. How is that possible for anyone on a fixed income? Most of the seniors I know take multiple prescriptions, and have had to cut their presciptions deeply. Some of these medications are the only thing that is keeping them alive.

[SoCalDem]

8. If enough people stop their meds and die, it saves money

Republicans DO think of stuff like this. :grr:

[acmejack]

10. I would love to know how they arrived at the donut hole!

You know the area between $2200 to $5100 wasn't just plucked from the sky, either!

[SoCalDem]

11. I have not studied this much, but i think I read somewhere that the

$2500 is NOT the out-of pocket co-pay amount, but the actual price of the meds, so if you are paying $25 copay for a $100 med, you will arrive at $2500 much quicker than you think ..Is this true, or just BS I read somewhere??

[acmejack]

14. That's true.

[Joanne98]

3. WE CAN DO BOTH!

Thanx anyway Newsweek!

[stepnw1f]

4. We Have to Do BOTH....!!!

Or the fixing of drug prices will not matter eventually.

[applegrove]

5. Looks like an agenda !!!

[leftofthedial]

6. the triumph of the Two-Component RW strategy

COMPONENT 1: break everything you can get your hands on--leave a swath of destruction in your wake that threatens the survival of everyone who contacts the debris.

COMPONENT 2: then, while everyone is distracted by the utter devastation you have created, start committing the real crimes that are the reason you seized power in teh first place--drain the treasury into your pockets and the pockets of your friends; allow the most predatory capitalists on the planet to control as much of the power structure of government as possible; destroy as many as possible of the protections of citizens against your predations and those of your future progeny; building on teh structural damage created by your predecessor criminals (your dad or the drooling idiot your bosses installed a couple of decades ago, do as much as possible to make it easier for you and your ilk to seize power again in the future.

Then, even if you lose part of your power, the opposition will be so overwhelmed by the magnitude of the wreckage you created in Component 1 that they will be unable or unwilling to even address the systemic corruption and destruction of democracy that you accomplish in Component 2.

[Nite Owl]

9. More important doesn't mean

not important at all. Both can and must be done. Showing how they raided the Treasury. Giving people the facts and making people accountable is important and much as the right wing media and this administration don't want there exploits knows they must be. We can do pass laws and investigate too especially if Congress is actually in session more than a few months of the year.

[earth mom]

12. We can do it ALL Newsweek!

BTW-your freeperish poll sucks!

[pa28]

13. Accountability is not an issue for polls to decide.

It sounds like Democrats are determined to have hearings and sort out the facts. I don't think they'll allow one poll, or even a dozen, to dictate the order of their agenda.