[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 134 (Wednesday, October 6, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12063-S12064]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




           SENIOR PRESCRIPTION INSURANCE COVERAGE EQUITY ACT

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I thank the Senator from Nevada who has 
been a strong champion of the rights of seniors. He and I serve on the 
Committee on Aging.
  I take this opportunity this morning to talk about an extraordinarily 
important issue for the older people of this country, and that is the 
need to make sure senior citizens can get prescription drug coverage as 
part of the Medicare program.
  I am especially proud that Senator Olympia Snowe and I have 
introduced what is now the only bipartisan prescription drug bill 
before the Senate, and I am hopeful in the days ahead we can get this 
legislation before the Senate and ensure that the millions of 
vulnerable older people in this country get decent prescription drug 
coverage under Medicare.
  I believe it is time to get this issue out of the beltway, get it out 
of Washington, DC, and get it to the grassroots of America. That is why 
Senator Snowe and I have initiated a grassroots campaign to get 
prescription drug coverage under Medicare.
  As folks can see in the example next to me, we are hoping in the next 
few weeks that senior citizens and their families from across the 
country will send in copies of their prescription drug bills to their 
Senators. We think our proposal, the Senior Prescription Insurance 
Coverage Equity Act, known as SPICE, is the way to proceed because it 
is bipartisan, it is market oriented, it gives senior citizens choice 
in the marketplace, and uses marketplace forces to hold down costs for 
prescription medicine.
  We use as a model the Federal Employees Health Benefits Program, 
which is what Members of Congress and their families have as the 
delivery system for health care. If it is good enough for Members of 
the Senate, Senator Snowe and I believe it is good enough for the older 
people of our country.
  We are hoping that instead of this just being a discussion within the 
beltway, with the various interest groups on one side or the other 
lining up, we hope in the days ahead, as a result of senior citizens 
sending in copies of their prescription drug bills and their families 
weighing in with their legislators, we can get our bipartisan bill 
moving.
  More than 50 Members of the Senate have already voted for the funding 
proposal Senator Snowe and I advocate. We propose there ought to be a 
tobacco tax to fund this program. We believe that is only right, 
because in this country, more than $12 billion goes out of the Medicare 
program each year to handle tobacco-related illnesses. We believe there 
is a direct connection between the funding proposal we establish and 
making sure older people get this benefit. With more than 50 Members of 
the Senate on record for the budget vote that Senator Snowe and I 
offered earlier this year, we ought to be able to build on that vote 
and actually get this program added to Medicare.
  I am especially pleased the approach Senator Snowe and I have taken 
is one that can help lower the cost of prescription drug coverage for 
older people. A key part of this debate is coverage, but equally as 
important is the need to hold down the costs of these prescriptions. We 
are seeing around this country that the big buyers of prescription 
drugs--the health maintenance organizations and the large purchasers--
get a discount and senior citizens are hit with a double whammy. Not 
only does Medicare not cover their prescriptions, but when a senior 
citizen walks into a pharmacy and picks up their prescription, say, in 
Arkansas or Oregon or Maine, they, in effect, are subsidizing the 
discounts the big buyers are getting as a result of their marketplace 
power.
  Some have proposed a system of price controls, putting Medicare in 
the position of buying up all the medicine and using that as their idea 
of holding down costs. Senator Snowe and I think that will end up 
generating a lot of cost shifting on to the part of other people who 
are having difficulty covering their prescription drug bills.
  We favor a market-oriented approach along the lines of the Federal 
employee health plan. We are not talking about a price control regime 
or a run-from-the-beltway approach to this issue. We are talking about 
using marketplace forces to hold down the costs of prescription drugs 
for our older people.
  It is especially urgent now. More than 20 percent of the Nation's 
senior citizens are spending more than $1,000 a year out of pocket for 
their prescription medicine. We have older people with incomes of 
$15,000, $16,000 a year spending $1,000 or $1,500 each year on their 
prescription drugs. Very often those seniors are not able to pick up a 
prescription their doctor phoned in to their neighborhood pharmacy 
because the senior citizen cannot afford it, and the prescription 
languishes for weeks at the pharmacy because they cannot pick it up.
  That is what I have heard from seniors in my State of Oregon. We have 
heard from other seniors whose physicians tell them they should be 
taking three pills a day and they cannot afford that, and they start by 
taking two, and then they take one. Eventually they get sicker and they 
need much more expensive care.
  In fact, the pharmaceuticals now and the medicines of the future are 
going to be preventive drugs. They are going to be drugs that help 
lower blood pressure and help us deal with cholesterol problems. As a 
result, in the long term, we are going to save significant dollars by 
preventing expensive institutionalizations and hospital services as a 
result of adding immediate prescription drug coverage to the Medicare 
program. Clearly, this benefit needs to be paid for.
  The proposal Senator Snowe and I have offered will generate more than 
$70 billion in the next few years to add this benefit to the program. I 
am very hopeful the Senate will move on a bipartisan basis to tackle 
this issue.

[[Page S12064]]

  There are many, certainly, in Washington, DC, who think the 
prescription drug issue is too complicated and too political to deal 
with now, that we should wait until after the election. Senator Snowe 
and I reject that approach. It is more than a year until the next 
election. We are hoping senior citizens, just as this poster next to me 
says, will send in copies of their prescription drug bills to their 
Senators. Tell the Members of the Senate exactly why this issue is 
important to them, why the lack of prescription drug coverage is 
causing them a hardship, and help Senator Snowe and I ignite a 
grassroots movement to ensure that prescription drug coverage does 
become part of the Medicare program.
  In effect, it is time for a wake-up call to the Congress. Some of the 
naysayers and those who say we ought to put this issue off I think are 
missing the real needs of the Nation's older people. If you have an 
income of $15,000 or $16,000 and you are spending $1,500 a year for 
prescription drugs, if you are giving up other essentials, such as 
electricity, to pay for your prescription drugs, you cannot afford to 
wait until after the next election.
  It may be a luxury for people here in the beltway to wait until after 
the next election to talk about the need to come up with a practical 
solution to covering older people with their prescriptions. Senator 
Snowe and I think waiting is not a luxury that the millions of 
vulnerable, older people in this country have. They cannot afford to 
wait.
  We are hoping, as a result of this campaign we have launched in the 
last week to have folks send in a copy of their prescription drug 
bills, that this can serve as a wakeup call to this Senate and this 
Congress that the time to act is now.
  We hope the Senate will choose the proposal we have developed. 
Undoubtedly, there are other very good ideas. I am sure we will hear 
from seniors, when they send in copies of their bills, about the best 
way to address this issue legislatively. Ours is a marketplace-oriented 
approach. It is based on the kind of program that Members of the Senate 
have.
  We hope, in the days ahead, seniors from across the country will send 
us copies of their prescription drug bills. We want to see this 
coverage added now. We want to see the Senate address this in a 
bipartisan way.
  With that, I yield the floor.
  Mr. President, I suggest the absence of a quorum and ask unanimous 
consent the time be evenly charged.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.
  The clerk will call the roll.
  The bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. McCONNELL. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent that the order 
for the quorum call be rescinded.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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