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Interest Groups Battle Over Medicare Drug Plan Ads

By Todd Zwillich
Originally published by Reuters Health, May 10, 2002

WASHINGTON (Reuters Health) — A group of labor unions and allied seniors’ organizations filed a complaint with the Federal Trade Commission (FTC) Friday, asking the agency to investigate a new round of issue ads that they say mislead voters about proposed Medicare prescription drug coverage.

The groups are upset over an ad campaign begun Thursday night and Friday in 18 congressional districts around the nation by a conservative lobbying group called the United Seniors Association. The groups accused the association of serving as a front for the pharmaceutical industry in the politically charged debate over adding a prescription drug benefit to the Medicare program.

The ads, targeted at 16 Republicans and 2 Democrats, urge consumers to encourage their representative to work with President Bush in enacting a drug benefit this year.

“Thank Congressman Hoekstra for fighting to add prescription drugs to Medicare, and tell him that you’ll appreciate his vote again,” states an announcer in one ad running in the eastern Michigan district of Republican Rep. Peter Hoekstra. Eleven other ads use the names of other lawmakers who supported a GOP-backed drug plan in 2000, while six more target members who opposed the plan.

The United Seniors Association spent over $3 million on the ads, according to the organization.

Leaders from the United Auto Workers, the Service Employees International Union and other groups wrote a letter asking FTC Commissioner Timothy J. Muris to investigate the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America (PhRMA), a trade group for brand-name drug makers, for using the United Seniors Association as “a shell group to promote prescription drug legislation on television.”

They said that the ads mislead consumers because they do not make it clear that they are financed by the drug industry.

“The fact of the matter is that the organization wouldn’t be putting the ads on the market unless the pharmaceutical industry hadn’t cut them a $3 million check,” said Edward Coyle, executive director of the Alliance for Retired Americans.

The group joined a consumer group known as US Action in a press conference outside of the Washington, DC offices of Pfizer, Inc., a major drug manufacturer. Jeff Blum, US Action’s executive director, is the lead signer of the FTC letter.

PhRMA spokesperson Jackie Cottrell said that the group did send “an unrestricted educational grant” to the United Seniors Association, though she would not disclose the amount. PhRMA had no input into the national ad campaign, she said.

“It is up to (them) on how they disburse the grant,” according to Cottrell.

Charles Jarvis, who heads the United Seniors Association, also declined to disclose the size of the grant. He said that “only some” of the money used to buy the ads was received from PhRMA and individual drug companies.

Susan Yarin, a Pfizer spokesperson, declined to comment on the ads or the United Seniors Association.

FTC officials could not be immediately reached for comment.

The skirmish over the ads is largely a miniature version of a huge political fight over prescription drugs in the Medicare program that most observers expect will spill over into the 2002 congressional elections.

Leaders in the Republican-controlled House this week released many details of a coming prescription drug bill that they have vowed to pass by June. While the proposal is expected to win the support of the majority of House members, it is likely to gain scant attention from the Democrat-controlled Senate.

Senate members, working on their own prescription drug plans, have yet to schedule any official debate on the topic.

As lawmakers prepare to debate, labor and business groups have already begun. While the United Seniors Association is known for its strong ties to business and Republican causes, the 2.5 million members of the Alliance for Retired Americans is comprised almost entirely of retired labor union members whose organizations signed them up automatically, Coyle said.

Coyle accused the United Seniors Association of helping to pass the House GOP plan quickly and with little debate. “Clearly the American public is not going to have a way to actually understand the proposal and weigh in,” he said.

PhRMA spokesperson Jeff Trewhitt defended the industry’s sponsorship of messages delivered through the United Seniors Association and other groups it supports. “Why is it okay for AFL-CIO and not for the pharmaceutical industry?” he said.