This article was published in the Sacramento Bee, Duluth News-Tribune, Augusta (GA) Chronicle, Watertown (NY) Daily Times, and other Knight Ridder newspapers in January 2005.

New Year’s resolutions for the U.S.

By Diana Zuckerman

If our government was making New Year’s resolutions, there would be many to choose from. Here are three that could make a big difference in our safety and security.

One of the most urgent risks to our health and our wallets is one most Americans haven't yet recognized. That's the drug epidemic stemming from spending billions of dollars on medical care, prescription drugs and medical products that are not as safe or effective as we think they are.

Medicare has saved millions of lives over the years, by providing health care to retired people and those with disabilities. Unfortunately, the changes in Medicare law that were intended to provide prescription drug coverage in the coming years could destroy the program if we don’t do something immediately.

The new Medicare law will be a windfall for pharmaceutical companies, but not for patients. Some patients will benefit, but on balance the law is a mistake that needs to be repealed or fixed. Changes are needed to reduce medication costs. Otherwise, Medicare will be unaffordable to the country, and all of us, not just our parents and grandparents, will be harmed.

Congress and the president don’t like to admit they made a mistake, even when (as is true in this case) the mistake was partly based on misleading cost calculations. The public must demand a change in the law — otherwise, it will not happen.

The second resolution also involves medical care. All Americans are being harmed by prescription drug problems. As individuals and as a country, we're spending more on prescription drugs than ever before, including billions on painkillers that may be less safe and no more effective than the oldest, least expensive pills on the market. For example, aspirin, acetaminophen and ibuprofen have risks, but those risks have been exaggerated by companies selling more expensive alternatives.

For pennies most of us can take them, get pain relief, and not have to worry about fatal side effects.

In recent weeks we have learned that painkillers are killing us. Unfortunately, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. There have been other extremely unpleasant surprises in our medicine cabinets in the last few years. Taxpayers support the Food and Drug Administration for one reason: to protect us. But something has gone terribly wrong, and it’s not just prescription drugs — it’s also vaccines and medical implants.

If fixing the FDA is our second New Year’s resolution, let’s be sure to include better long-term research on the shunts in babies and children with birth defects, the heart valves and hip and knee replacements in our parents or grandparents, the gastric LAP bands in obesity patients, and the various cosmetic implants in so many of our favorite celebrities (and increasing numbers of our friends).

My third proposed resolution is to protect Social Security. Social Security is not currently in crisis, and some of the “solutions” being debated by our government leaders are worse than the problems would be. Under the current system, if Social Security Trust Fund money is made available as promised, the United States will have enough funds to pay all beneficiaries for almost 50 years. Compared to Medicare and many other policy issues facing us, it is silly to call that a crisis.

Social Security needs some tinkering to fix it for the long-term, and it would be wise to do that soon, while baby boomers are working and paying into the system. In the next few years, however, the only potential crisis is that politicians will destroy the system in order to save it. In reality, the biggest problem facing us in the coming decade is whether the Social Security taxes that have been collected from our paychecks for the Social Security Trust Fund will be used up on other priorities, such as wars and excessive tax cuts, causing red ink as far as the eye can see. That is a serious problem, but it is not a problem of the Social Security program. It should not be solved on the backs of the millions of aging Americans who depend on Social Security now or soon will — or the families that care about them.

It’s easy to make New Year’s resolutions, but hard to keep them. As a country, it is difficult to even make them. Fortunately, our country has a government of the people and for the people, and they will listen to the people. They need to hear from us: to undo the damage being done to Medicare, to remind the FDA that protecting consumers is its most important goal, and to safeguard the Social Security Trust fund so that the money will be there when we need it.


ABOUT THE WRITER

Diana Zuckerman is president of the National Research Center for Women & Families, a Washington research center. Readers may write to her at: National Research Center for Women & Families, 1701 K St. NW, Suite 700, Washington, D.C. 20006; e-mail: dz@center4research.org; Web site: www.center4research.org.

This essay is available to Knight Ridder/Tribune News Service subscribers. Knight Ridder/Tribune did not subsidize the writing of this column; the opinions are those of the writer and do not necessarily represent the views of Knight Ridder/Tribune or its editors.

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© 2004, National Research Center for Women & Families

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