Gore Demands Group Reveal Funding

W A S H I N G T O N, July 5, 2000 -- They call themselves “Citizens for Better Medicare,” but Vice President Al Gore says they’re a front for the pharmaceutical industry and he is demanding that they reveal the source of their funding.

President Clinton signed legislation last week requiring so-called stealth political action committees to disclose the names of their donors. Citizens for Better Medicare, one of the many groups affected by the reform, is running TV, radio and print ads bashing a plan backed by Gore that would expand Medicare to include a prescription drug benefit.

“Government price controls on medicines interfere with doctors and patients,” the narrator says in one 60-second television spot. “Call Congress. Don’t let federal price controls cost you your medicines and your health.”

“Millions of dollars right now are going into a phony coalition called ‘Citizens for Better Medicare,’” Gore said at the American Federation of Teachers Convention in Philadelphia this afternoon, “which is polluting the public airwaves with special interest TV ads designed to deceive the American people about a prescription drug benefit.”

The new campaign finance law doesn’t require the shadowy organizations to reveal their past donors, so the Democratic presidential candidate is demanding that CBM do so voluntarily.

“I call on your organization to reveal the source of your million dollar campaign,” Gore wrote in a letter to Timothy C. Ryan, executive director of CBM, “so Americans can understand the real voices in this critical debate, not special interests cloaked in secrecy.

“The American people deserve to know who exactly is trying to influence this critical issue.”

After signing the campaign disclosure bill into law, Clinton made a similar plea.

“In the spirit of this law which I have signed,” the president said Saturday. “I think that Citizens for Better Medicare oughtto … open their books and disclose the sources ofthe funds which have paid for these ads — Let the American people judge ifthis organization truly is for better Medicare.”

$65 Million and Still Spending

Since the White House first proposed Medicare coverage for prescription drugs last year, CBM has raised and spent some $65 million on a media campaign aimed at derailing the proposal.

“They ought to start calling themselves ‘Drug Industry for Better Medicare,’” says Frank Clemente of Public Citizen’s Congress Watch, a nonprofit consumer advocacy group. “It‘s the drug industry spending tens of millions of dollars, putting out their propaganda about what they believe is or is not the right way to provide a prescription drug benefit.”

The group is obligated by the new law only to disclose its future donors, but it is the millions of dollars in contributions from past donors that are financing for the ongoing media blitz.

“I’ll bet you we’ll find out that they’re not citizens for better Medicare, but citizens for higher big drug company profits,” Gore said today.

But CBM says it has no plans to disclose the names of its past donors, and insists that it has nothing to hide from the public.

“We’ve admitted from day one that the pharmaceutical industry was a member of our coalition and that they provided a major source of the funding,” said Dan Zielinski, a spokesman for the special interest group. “There have been constant charges that we’re hiding something and we’re not.”

Potent Politics

This latest controversy comes as the soaring cost of prescription medicines is becoming an increasingly potent political issue. A study released last month by Express Scripts Inc. showed that drug costs rose by a record 17.4 percent last year. And, according to a recent ABCNEWS poll, 84 percent of all Americans say the issue of prescription drug benefits will be important to them in deciding whom to vote for in the presidential election.

Last week, House Republicans pushed through legislation that, if enacted, would subsidize drug coverage plans from private insurance companies. But Democrats say the measure is unworkable and continue to argue for the expansion of Medicare to cover prescription drug costs.

“Let’s update Medicare with a prescription drug benefit for all our seniors,” Gore told his enthusiastic union audience in Philadelphia this afternoon, “so they can afford the life-improving, often life-saving, medicines they depend on.”

The vice president also repeated his accusation that “drug company price-gouging” is to blame for the recent price hikes.

“It’s just a fact that this industry, by far, has the higher profits of any industry in America,” he said. “But when they say they need higher profits to fuel innovation, I can’t help but notice that they’re now spending more money on advertising than they are on innovation.”

By publicly taking on CBM, Gore is seeking to highlight his support for greater campaign finance disclosure and for having Medicare cover drug expenses — positions which his campaign believes will play well with voters. Indeed, 89 percent of the public, according to the ABCNEWS survey, support the creation of a drug benefit under Medicare.

As for CBM, the organization says it will continue its campaign against the proposal.

“The group is not going away,” insisted spokesman Zielinski, “and we’ll be in full compliance with the law.”

ABCNEWS’ Dana Hill and Josh Gerstein contributed to this story.