Whatever happened to old people and their prescription drugs?

Posted at 9:48 PM on April 3, 2006 by Bob Collins

The Hill has a column about the toney Club for Growth, the arch conservative funding organization for "true conservative" candidates. They like Phil Krinkie and it's mentioned there. Apparently they're angry that some Republicans are turning more centrist than they'd like. And they've raised twice as much money as the last election cycle.

What interested me was this line from the club's president...

"Toomey has established a vetting process to ensure that each of the candidates its PAC supports is a true conservative who would “go down to the floor and vote against the Medicare prescription-drug benefit” and also has a clear shot at winning despite a tendency “to ruffle feathers within the party establishment.”

That sent me to the Krinkie Web site in search of his position on a prescription drug benefit.

Funny. There's nothing there. Actually, there's not much there on any issue. But the ommission of anything about health care is glaringly absent.

So let's get this straight.

1. Krinkie's the beneficiary of the Club for Growth
2. The Club has a vetting method to be sure a candidate wouldn't vote for a Medicare prescription drug benefit.

Call me crazy, but where I come from, 1 & 2 add up to the notion that the Club for Growth ASKED Krinkie whether he'd vote for a prescription drug benefit and he answered "no." In fact, he said as much in a Star Tribune profile in which he called it "ill-conceived, ill-wrought, ill-implemented."

True enough, perhaps, but the question wasn't about this prescription drug benefit, it was about a prescription drug benefit.

There's been a lot of mudslinging in that race over stupid things the last week or so, but being against a prescription drug benefit for seniors is a rootin' tootin' campaign issue. Just ask the elderly.

So why hasn't it been an issue. Because Jim Knoblach is against it too, according to a debate summary in the St. Cloud Times in February. Michele Bachmann's position is difficult to assess. In 2004, she put out a press release on HSA,s but that does nothing to get retirees (who don't have HSAs) prescription drugs.

Her Web site? It's as bereft of anything about health care as Krinkie's. Funny. The whole point of getting the prescription drug benefit passed was to get it off the table as a campaign issue in 2004 because it's the sort of issue that can turn a lot of voters -- read that: the elderly -- against you in a hurry if you're not quick.

Up to now, it's worked. But I'm guessing as we head for the general election, it's back on.

There'll be a ton of money coming into that race and I can see alot of TV ads intended to scare the old folks.

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