Dems cheer Pingree’s prescription-drug stand

AUGUSTA – Insisting that the challenge of providing public access to low-cost prescription drugs remains a daunting task, Democratic U.S. Senate candidate Chellie Pingree vowed to “take the battle to Washington” if she is elected Nov. 5.

Speaking to nearly 1,000 delegates to the Maine Democratic State Convention, the former state Senate majority leader from North Haven said health care is still the most important issue for Mainers and that low-cost prescription drugs should be available to all.

“We are on the way to solving this problem in the state of Maine and [in] states across the country,” she said.

Hoping to defeat Bangor Republican Sen. Susan Collins in her first bid for re-election, Pingree said she was gratified by a White House recommendation to the U.S. Supreme Court to reject an appeal of the Maine Rx program. Pingree was the lead sponsor of the bill designed to provide low-cost prescription drugs to the state’s uninsured.

On Friday, Solicitor General Theodore B. Olson submitted a requested brief with the U.S. Supreme Court, urging that the Maine Rx program be allowed to move forward even as the nation’s largest pharmaceutical companies, represented by Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, or PhRMA, continue a court battle against the state in U.S. District Court in Portland.

Pingree and others are awaiting the U.S. Supreme Court’s response to the White House recommendation, which it may follow or reject. She said she remembered when she was first informed that Maine shouldn’t have to pay higher prices for drugs than the companies were charging other countries such as neighboring Canada.

“I certainly learned that you should never be afraid of a bold idea and you should never run from a fight because if you are on the side of right, as we learn every day, the people are right there with you,” she said.

In a list of campaign promises that drew cheer after cheer, Pingree vowed she would never “gamble” the nation’s Social Security assets on “Wall Street schemes,” and that she would push hard for initiatives that improved the minimum wage, protected the environment and advanced health care.

“And when it comes to our economy, I’ll be on the side of working people and small businesses – not big corporations like Enron who will ship out our jobs to other places and then want to shelter their taxes overseas,” said Pingree in an apparent swipe at Collins, who voted against investigating Enron.

Pingree told the delegates she would need their help to win a race that could determine the current balance of power in the almost evenly divided U.S. Senate. She reminded them that control of the Senate would influence everything from the course of U.S. domestic and international policy to the deciding vote on the U.S. Supreme Court. By electing her to replace Collins, Pingree promised the delegates they would always be able to rely on her determination to succeed.

“I will never run away from a tough fight and you will know whose side I’m on,” she said.