The House this spring voted to pass a budget amendment repealing the ban on gifts over $50 from pharmaceutical and medical device companies to doctors.
Speaker of the House Robert A. DeLeo said today that the 2008 ban on gifts from pharmaceutical companies to doctors is a hindrance to job creation.By KYLE CHENEY
BOSTON - A ban on gifts from pharmaceutical companies to doctors, enacted in 2008 to control health-care costs and guard against conflicts of interest, has proven to be a “hindrance” to job creation, scaring off companies who would otherwise do business in Massachusetts, according to House Speaker Robert A. DeLeo.
“I look at the lifting of the gift ban here in the commonwealth as a means that we can create more business. I’ve been talking to many folks who own restaurants, [executive director] Jim Rooney from the convention center, some of the folks who do catering and what not,” DeLeo said in an interview on Needham-based WCVB-TV's show "On The Record." “I feel that we are losing business here in Massachusetts as a result of companies that aren’t willing to come to Massachusetts because of this ban.”
DeLeo said he isconcerned that the gift ban runs against his “biggest goal,” job creation. “I look at this as a hindrance,” he said.
Backers of the gift ban, passed a part of a 2008 bill driven by the Senate intended to address soaring health care costs, argue that gifts from pharmaceutical companies and medical device makers to doctors interfere with the doctor-patient relationship, often swaying doctors to prescribe costlier medications or recommend costlier courses of treatment rather than what is medically necessary.
But critics say the industry is already governed by a strict code of ethical conduct, that doctors with years of medical schooling wouldn’t be plied by a free meal from a drug company, and that the Massachusetts ban far exceeds the strictest standards set by the industry. In particular, critics say restaurants have suffered in neighborhoods like the North End, adjacent to major hospital districts, where doctors are often treated to dinner and presentations by the medical companies they work with.
The House in late April voted 128-22 to pass a fiscal 2012 budget amendment repealing the ban on gifts over $50 from pharmaceutical and medical device companies to doctors. The Senate stuck by the ban law, leaving the issue to be resolved by a conference committee eyeing a budget resolution next week.
Last session, the House also voted to lift the gift ban but the Senate did not agree to the move.
Gift ban supporter Sen. Mark Montigny this week blamed the influence of lobbying for the House’s retreat from the 2009 gift ban law, which he described as a compromise that ceded ground by allowing gifts of up to $50 and dropping a Senate proposal that would have required pharmaceutical representatives to be licensed in the state.
"The fact that there is even a discussion that small businesses and restaurants should impact life-saving health policy is the problem in Massachusetts," Montigny said on Wednesday shortly before a legislative committee heard a bill that would exempt restaurants from the ban.
The gift ban was a magnet for lobbyists last session, drawing direct action, hired hands or general monitoring from Health Care For All, the Massachusetts Medical Society, the Massachusetts Dental Society, Associated Industries of Massachusetts, the Massachusetts Association of Health Plans, America’s Health Insurance Plans, PhRMA, the Greater Boston Convention and Visitors Bureau, the AARP, and the Massachusetts High Technology Council.
During his appearance on WCVB, which is Channel 5 in the Boston area, DeLeo described “good progress” on talks with Senate President Therese Murray and Gov. Deval L. Patrick on the contours of expanded gambling legislation, a bill long promoted as a major job creator. Unable to strike a deal on gambling legislation last session, DeLeo said he’d make “no promises” that the leaders would reach resolution on a gambling bill this session.
“I am hopeful that we can get something done,” DeLeo said, reiterating his often-stated position, “I’m willing to compromise even more than I have.”
DeLeo last year shepherded through the House a plan that included two destination resort casinos and four slot licenses for the state’s four racetracks. Eventually, after negotiations with the Senate, the branches agreed on a three-casino, two-racino proposal. But Patrick balked, comparing the racetrack licenses to a no-bid deal for wealthy track owners and although he offered support for a three-casino, one-racino deal – contingent upon legislative action on a number of his other priorities – lawmakers left Patrick’s offer on the table and ended the two-year session by letting the legislation die.
Patrick sent the bill back with an amendment after lawmakers ended formal sessions for the year, and the bill died without action in the Legislature. Lawmakers and Patrick have been slow this year to restart talks on gambling and they’ve indicated they intend to hash out the parameters of a bill behind closed doors, a strategy they hope will avoid a protracted, all-consuming debate that distracts from other issues.
DeLeo said June 6 that he hopes to get a gambling bill through in July.
During the WCVB interview, DeLeo also commented briefly on the brouhaha that followed revelations that Rep. Mark Cusack, a Braintree Democrat, and a Republican aide were discovered in the House chamber during a party in the speaker’s office hours after a House budget session in late April.
“I think he feels terribly about it. I would have to say in the five months he has been in office, he’s a great representative, a great advocate for his district,” DeLeo said. “I think, you know, he’s learned his lesson about being a little more careful now that you’re a state representative and I think he will continue to represent his district very well.”
DeLeo said he was uncertain if House rules should be changed barring after-hours visits to the chamber.
“Sometimes I mat get a dignitary or a visitor or a family at 8 o’clock in the evening who I’ll take into the chamber and say this is where we do our business,” DeLeo said.