Grassley addresses health care issues in FD visit
Says bipartisanship is needed to avert Social Security crisis
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U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley on Tuesday visited UnityPoint Health -- Trinity Regional Medical Center, a facility he's trying to help with new legislation.
The Republican senator expressed hope that his bill will see final passage by the end of the year, providing much needed funding to mid-sized hospitals.
Following a tour and a question and answer session with hospital employees, Grassley talked about health care and Social Security issues during an interview.
He said the bill that he and Sen. Michael Bennett, D-Colorado, wrote addressed "tweener hospitals." He said those are hospitals that are not big city facilities that receive lots of Medicare and private insurance income, but they also aren't small town hospitals that get critical access funding. He said there are at least four hospitals in that category in Iowa, including Trinity Regional Medical Center.
The Grassley-Bennett bill passed the Senate and went to the House of Representatives, where U.S. Rep. Randy Feenstra, R-Hull, is pushing it.
Grassley said if it doesn’t pass on its own, he will seek to attach it to some must-pass legislation at the end of the year.
He is also working with another Democratic senator, Ron Wyden, of Oregon, to address pharmacy benefit managers. He said they are organizations that are between drug manufacturers and patients. They appear to be responsible for setting drug prices, he said, but they remain somewhat mysterious.
"Nobody knows what they do," he said.
He said three pharmacy benefit managers control 85 percent of the market. He added that two of them are owned by insurance companies, which he described as an "incestual relationship."
"Our legislation would open this all up," Grassley said. "Once we get transparency, we will get accountability and that should drive down prices."
He said the federal government has the right to address the business practices of pharmacy benefit managers because it spends millions of dollars every year on prescriptions for Medicare and Medicaid recipients.
A historic example of bipartisanship should be remembered to help address a looming Social Security benefit cut.
The surplus in the Social Security Trust Fund is projected to be used up in 2032, which will result in a 22 percent cut in benefits.
"It's going to be a dramatic harm to older people and disabled people, Grassley said.
He recalled that in 1983, President Ronald Reagan, a Republican, and House Speaker Tip O'Neil, a Democrat, negotiated a solution to a previous Social Security crisis that kept the trust fund solvent for 50 years.
"Nothing is going to happen until you have Republicans and Democrats sitting down to solve the problem," Grassley said.