A couple of weeks ago I did a post on Newt being called into Congress in 2003 to persuade lobby members of the House GOP to support the Medicare prescription drug benefit. Now some Republican members who were there are saying that he did lobby the Congress:

Gingrich, who is running for president, has said he never lobbied members of Congress after he resigned as House speaker in 1998. But U.S. Rep. Jeff Flake and former congressman Butch Otter told The Des Moines Register this week that Gingrich helped persuade reluctant Republicans to vote for the Medicare prescription-drug program, which barely passed.

Flake and Otter, who have endorsed Mitt Romney for president, said about 30 Republican House members were holding out against the bill in the fall of 2003 because they feared the proposal would expand the federal deficit. Proponents brought in Gingrich, who addressed a private meeting of Republican House members, they recalled. “He told us, ‘If you can’t pass this bill, you don’t deserve to govern as Republicans,’ ” said Flake, who represents an Arizona district. “…If that’s not lobbying, I don’t know what is.”

The problem is that this bill did expand the deficit. Republicans refused to allow the government to negotiate for lower prices, saying it would “actually increase the costs”, but as we have seen this is nothing but a lie:

For the cholesterol-lowering drug Zocor, the cost of a year’s supply of 20 milligram tablets would be $1,485.96 under the cheapest Medicare Part D plan, compared to $127.44 under the VA.

How something costing more than 10 times more is “savings” is beyond me. True I have never understood Republican math.

But the fact is that Newt was instrumental in a costly and fundamental change to Medicare that left us with a bunch of citizens unable to obtain their drugs in 2006 and that costly “doughnut hole” that left seniors living on a fixed income having to decide between medication and food.

Way to go Newt!