AARP begins campaign push for prescription drug benefit

Iowan’s are joining a national effort that has senior citizens flexing their collective muscles in an effort to get cheaper drugs. Iowa AARP public policy director, John McCalley, says they’re asking candidates for federal offices to sign a pledge promising to enact a prescription drug benefit for Medicare. He says they feel they need to have the pledge in writing to get it to happen in the next Congressional session. McCalley says there are 372-thousand AARP members in Iowa and over 35-million nationwide. They hope those potential votes will be enough to push leaders to pledge to pass the issue. He says they’re going to publicize who does and who doesn’t sign the pledge. McCalley says this has been a frustrating issue for seniors.He says AARP focuses on a variety of issues, but this has been their top issue for the past five years, and they’ve failed to see the prescription drug benefit passed, despite repeated promises. McCalley says they’ll start attending various appearances of the candidates in Iowa this week and ask them to sign the pledge.