Rogers votes NO on medicare prescription drug bill

This is a few days late, but still worth posting.

Here's the legislative summary for H.R. 4:

Current law, established under the Medicare Prescription Drug and Modernization Act of 2003, specifically prohibits the HHS Secretary from lobbying drug companies to lower prices, opting instead to rely on market forces to make these medicines affordable.

H.R. 4, in its most basic description, requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to negotiate directly with pharmaceutical companies in hopes of lowering drug prices for Medicare Part D beneficiaries.

It also requires the Secretary of Health and Human Services to submit a report every six months to the Committees on Ways and Means, Energy and Commerce, and Oversight and Government Reform in the House and the Committee on Finance in the Senate on whether and to what extent negotiations have lowered the price of drugs for Medicare Part D beneficiaries.

Making sure Medicare Part D beneficiaries receive fair prices from pharmaceutical companies for their prescriptions makes a lot of sense, right? Mike Rogers doesn't think so. He voted no on H.R. 4 last week, along with Candice Miller, Joe Knollenberg, Tim Walberg and the rest of the republicans in Michigan's congressional delegation.

Of course, this should come as no surprise to voters living in the 8th district, since Mike Rogers has taken $263,857 from Health Professionals and $120,560 from Pharmaceutical companies throughout his career.

As we've noted before, Mike Rogers says he works "for you", but that's clearly not the case. By voting no on a bill like H.R. 4, Mike Rogers has proven once again that he is beholden to big money interests (like the pharmaceutical companies) that helped put him in office.