THE UNINVITED

The House Ways and Means Committee heard testimony yesterday on the long-debated proposal to add a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program. Unfortunately, the committee heard only the testimony it wanted to hear.

Given that the issue at hand is how such a benefit would allow the federal government to negotiate with pharmaceutical companies to get better deals on prescription drugs for the nation’s seniors and that it is an issue stuck in neutral, it would make sense for the committee to hear from someone who took on the issue at the state level and actually got it to move. Such a person would have been – should have been – former Maine Senate Majority Leader Chellie Pingree, who was scheduled to testify Wednesday but had her invitation yanked at the last minute.

Ms. Pingree is the author of Maine Rx, the first program in the country that requires pharmaceutical companies to negotiate with a state on prices. That the law, having survived a lower court challenge, currently is tied up by the U.S. Supreme Court is irrelevant – such litigation is inevitable. What should have been relevant to the committee is that Ms. Pingree is quite knowledgeable about the very sort of legislation under discussion.

The leadership of Ways and Means says Ms. Pingree was scratched from the guest list because she is a candidate for public office. Assume this is the whole truth and nothing but, and the committee, a panel of perpetual candidates for public office, has set a very peculiar standard for participation. Assume that by “candidate for public office” the Republican leadership of the committee actually means “a Democratic candidate for the United States Senate” and this uninvitation, though still betraying a lack of both manners and thirst for knowledge, at least indicates a keen appreciation of partisan politics.

Had the committee elected to hear Ms. Pingree, it could have heard informed opinion on why Americans, who bankroll the taxpayer-funded research that the pharmaceutical industry uses, should not pay substantially higher prices than consumers in other industrialized nations and face irrational barriers to the wider availability of lower-cost generics. Although Maine Rx is in limbo, the committee still might have been interested in the federal waiver that allows Maine to expand eligibility for discount drugs under the Medicaid program that provides health care to the poor, a waiver that cuts the cost of some prescriptions by up to 25 percent for about 225,000 Maine citizens.

An account of the bus trips Ms. Pingree has taken with seniors to Canada for affordable prescriptions would have added a human-interest angle. And, if the committee wanted to grill someone on why a Medicare benefit is or is not an innovation-stifling governmental intrusion into the marketplace, Ms. Pingree would have been the perfect addition to the Ways and Means menu.

Of course, not all committee members are so mannerless and apparently comfortable with being clueless. Rep. Fortney Stark, Democrat of California and ranking member of the health subcommittee, said he is “sorry and embarrassed” by this episode. Those are right sentiments, which those responsible no doubt also choose not to hear.