GOP Senator Urges Halt to Medicare Ads

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Politics - U. S. Congress
GOP Senator Urges Halt to Medicare Ads

Tue Aug 31, 6:22 PM ET



NEW YORK - An author of last year's law creating Medicare prescription drug benefits says liberal groups are undermining the program by spreading false information about it, and he wants them to stop. But the organizations will have none of it.



Sen. Charles Grassley (news, bio, voting record), R-Iowa, said some advertisements on television and posted on the Internet are aimed at discrediting the program and scaring senior citizens. He said the claims include statements that the new program — which takes full effect in 2006 — is a giveaway to the pharmaceutical industry.

The groups "must get out of this mindset of the senior citizens of America being the property of the Democratic party," said Grassley, chairman of the Senate Finance Committee.

The organizations he listed include liberal tax-exempt organizations like MoveOn.org and advocacy groups like Families USA, which favors better health care benefits.

The measure has given Republicans less of an election-year boost than they had hoped. Democrats and their supporters have been criticizing the Medicare expansion as inadequate since it became law last winter.

Papers distributed by Grassley, who is attending his party's national convention, said the "demagoguery" is "one of the reasons why seniors have been slow to sign up" for the Medicare drug discount card program