Congress should take note of a recent study predicting that prescription drug prices will double over the next decade. If true, the price increase would make the timid steps proposed so far seem worse than inadequate. High drug prices, a third of Medicare recipients without coverage and a failure to respond strongly risks the health of millions of seniors.

The study by Families USA predicts that drug prices, which have risen by 116 percent since 1992, will double again by 2010 even as seniors become more dependent on prescription drugs for treatment. This, during a time of record profits by the industry and a surfeit of me-too drugs that are little more than new flavors of existing medication.

Congress has been aware of the growing problem for several years but has yet to muster the will to do anything substantial about it. The state of Maine alone among governments so far has told the drug industry that it expects to be treated at least as well as the industry treats insurers and wants lower prices for those without coverage, just as the industry has quietly negotiated lower prices for HMOs and the governments of every industrialized nation in the world but one – the United States. But as the disparity grows between the higher prices for those without insurance and lower prices for those who are covered, the demand for Congress to act is going to increase.

The Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, lobbyists for the industry, has been effective in keeping members of Congress from acting in part by claiming that drug price increases reflect the growing number of drugs available to treat illnesses that once required more expensive surgery. The Families USA study raises doubts about this claim. It points out that since 1992, overall medical expenses have risen 59 percent, which is well ahead of the Consumer Price Index. The overall increase doesn’t prove that drugs failed to save money in certain operations, but it does suggest that the savings were, at best, small compared with the total cost of medical care.

The study points to a further problem that shows why merely providing what would amount to insurance vouchers is less and less of an option for those without drug coverage. Fewer and fewer insurers are willing to offer the lower cost Medicare + Choice plan – Aetna U.S. Healthcare, the only insurer in Maine to offer it, will no longer at the end of the year – meaning the seniors who could not afford other Medigap plans will have even less chance of being covered.

Congress can take small steps in expanding Medicare drug coverage, but to make its plan anything like comprehensive and affordable, it will have to do what other nations do: Start substantial negotiations with drug companies over prices. Each year that Congress fails to act, this latest study shows, the gap between the haves and have-nots will grow ever wider.