The U.S. Senate candidate offers what he calls "simple solutions," and also takes a few sarcastic swipes at his opponent.

01:00 AM EST on Tuesday, February 21, 2006

BY KATHERINE GREGG
Journal State House Bureau

CRANSTON -- Up the stairs of a Wellington Avenue travel company and through a door labled "To the Lifeboats," Cranston Mayor and U.S. Senate candidate Stephen P. Laffey yesterday laid out his prescription drug cost-cutting plan.

Allow Medicare to negotiate drug prices. Reinstitute a requirement that drug companies disclose all known side-effect risks in their advertisements. Eliminate the payment of "user-fees" for FDA approval. Authorize "parallel trading" with other developed countries. Ban one drug company from paying another "not to manufacture" a less-expensive version of a drug.

"Require new brand-name drugs to be superior than current drugs . . . or no patent!"

Laffey suggested his "simple solutions" could slice up to a third -- $76 billion a year -- off consumer drug costs. He said they "aren't happening because big drug companies have too much power and weak-kneed politicians aren't willing to stand up to them."

He included Republican incumbent Lincoln D. Chafee among the "weak-kneed" pawns of the industry.

He provided a list of the $21,500 in contributions that, he said, Chafee received from people and PACs affiliated with the big-name drug companies during his 2000 campaign and the $3,000 he has gotten more recently from political arms of Amgen, Johnson & Johnson and Pfizer.

Laffey also portrayed his primary opponent, visually, as a stick figure in a bow tie who says: "I'm getting nervous -- need some more money from the drug lobby."

"It doesn't seem anyway possible that any reasonable person could come to the conclusion that . . . Medicare should not be allowed to negotiate cheaper prices for drugs for the American people, like my mom and dad," Laffey said. "But it happened."

"You have to ask Mr. Chafee . . . why he voted this way," said Laffey, citing Senate roll call number 245.

On that June 25, 2003, vote, Chafee voted with the 56-to-39 majority that defeated a Democrat-sponsored amendment to the Medicare drug-benefit bill that would have required negotiation "with pharmaceutical manufacturers with respect to the purchase price of covered drugs."

The amendment, sponsored by Sen. Richard Durbin of Illinois, also required the use of cost-cutting strategies, similar to those used by other federal agencies that buy drugs, such as the Veterans Administration. Laffey said the VA pays 1.5 times less, on average, than Medicare for drugs.

"He's 'no' on letting Medicare negotiate lower drug prices, I'm 'yes,' " Laffey alleged.

He also faulted Chafee for signing a July 2003 letter protesting House attempts to remove "vital safeguards" from a Senate-passed bill to allow the importation of drugs from 26 countries, including Canada.

"In the letter they say it's not safe. Aw c'mon," said Laffey. "No one believes that just because a drug came in from Canada, it's not safe . . . It happens all over. If people were dropping like flies, I think we'd know about it.

Chafee campaign manager Ian Lang had no immediate comment on the letter.

He also had no explanation for Chafee's vote against Democrat Durbin's amendment. But he said the senator "supports the negotiation of drug prices" and twice voted in favor of a Republican-sponsored version of the Durbin amendment.

Accusing Laffey of using "selective" votes to misrepresent Chafee's record, he said: "This would be another example of Mayor Laffey not doing his homework."

Lang said Chafee's votes for the negotiation of drug prices and, ultimately, against the Medicare drug-benefit bill "speaks for itself."

Asked at yesterday's news conference why he had reduced Chafee to a stick figure, Laffey said: "We're just having fun."

"Mr. Chafee, as I've said before, is a very nice man. I look forward to actually getting up and debating with him one day, if he will do that."

kgregg@projo.com / (401) 277-7078