White House Can't Explain More than Half of Announced Savings on Pharmaceuticals

The Obama White House has a plan. They are going to save us more than $80 billion on Prescription medications. You'd think that would be good news. The problem is that they cannot explain more than half of today's announced $80 billion in prescription drug savings.

A senior official said the White House estimates $30 billion in savings will be achieved through drug companies reducing by at least 50 percent the cost of brand-name prescription drugs for Medicare beneficiaries who fall into the so-called coverage "donut hole."

The other $50 billion in savings will come from unspecified and unknown changes to drug costs linked to Medicare and Medicaid.

The $80 billion in savings is a 10-year estimate, and a rosy one, at that. Much like many of the other 10 year estimates provided by this administration.

White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said Monday details on non-donut hole savings remain to be negotiated between the drug companies and the Senate Finance Committee.

In other words, we are going to cut into the profits of the drug companies who do the research and development to produce new medications to keep us alive to save $30 billion. And the rest is more rhetoric that is "not to be taken literally."

Do you suppose if this had been announced by a Republican administration that the MainStreamMedia would be reporting this without questioning the numbers?