[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 140 (Friday, October 15, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S12682-S12683]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                MEDICARE COVERAGE FOR PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I want to take a few minutes to talk about 
the effort I have launched with the other Senator from Maine, Ms. 
Olympia Snowe, around the only bipartisan effort now before the Senate 
to get Medicare coverage for prescription drugs for the Nation's senior 
citizens.
  As my colleagues can see in this poster next to me, Senator Snowe and 
I are urging that senior citizens send in their prescription drug bills 
to Members of the Senate in Washington, DC, to help show how important 
it is we address this issue in a bipartisan way for the millions of 
vulnerable elderly people.
  Here are a few of the prescription drug bills I have received from 
senior citizens from my home area in the Pacific Northwest. I will take 
a few minutes this afternoon on behalf of Senator Snowe and myself to 
talk about why this bipartisan issue is so very important.
  Let me read from a letter sent October 1 from an elderly women in 
Lebanon, OR. She said:

       Please find enclosed a copy of the prescription costs for 
     the past 6 months. As you will note, the average cost each 
     month is $236.92 without the over-the-counter medications I 
     must take. Please make use of these figures any way you can 
     in your effort to obtain prescription coverage for those of 
     us receiving Medicare. I'm 78 years old and doubt if I will 
     see the time prescriptions are a covered item. However, keep 
     fighting for the next generation.

  I want to tell this older person in Lebanon, at home in Oregon, that 
we are going to be fighting for her. We are not going to wait until the 
next generation to get older people the coverage they need. To think 
that this

[[Page S12683]]

Congress would say it is not critical to help this kind of vulnerable, 
elderly woman isn't acceptable to Senator Snowe and me. We have a 
market-oriented approach, one that can hold down the costs of 
prescription medicine for the Nation's senior citizens.
  On the basis of these bills that are being sent now to Senator Snowe 
and me, I think we can show this Congress that the time to act, in a 
bipartisan fashion, is now and not after the next election or the next 
election after that.
  Let me read from another letter I received on September 29 of this 
year from a gentleman, an elderly gentleman, in King City, OR. He said:

       I am a constant user of inhalant. Two uses per day come to 
     $839.80.

  Imagine that, two uses a day: $839.80.
  And he says:

       Fortunately, I drove a Chevrolet when my friends were 
     driving Cadillacs and our family vacations were spent in the 
     United States, not the South Seas, so I'm able to carry the 
     load, at least for a while.

  The annual cost of this prescription medication for this older person 
in King City, at home, is $30,600. It equals what it would cost to stay 
in a nursing home.

  I am just hopeful that with more examples like this, where senior 
citizens send to Senator Snowe and me copies of their prescription drug 
bills, we can win bipartisan support for this legislation before the 
end of this session.
  Let me cite a third letter I received at the beginning of October. 
This is from an elderly woman--it came just a few days ago--whose 
Social Security income is $1,179 a month. She spends $500 of her 
monthly income of $1,179 on prescription drugs. She is taking Fosamax. 
That is a drug that costs $179 a month. She is taking Prilosec. It 
costs $209 a month. And she is taking Lescol, which costs $112 a month. 
So it takes $500 a month from the monthly income of $1,179 of an 
elderly woman in the Pacific Northwest.
  Mr. President and colleagues, these bills that are being sent to 
Senator Snowe and me do not lie; they tell the whole story. We are 
going to do everything we can to ensure that Congress acts on this 
matter, in a bipartisan way, in this session of Congress.
  Just this week, I saw a story in one of the publications saying there 
was not a consensus around this issue. Senator Snowe and I got 54 
votes--a majority in the Senate--to join us in a funding plan for a 
prescription drug program. I am of the view that we cannot afford not 
to cover prescription drugs because so many of these prescription drugs 
today help to lower blood pressure and cholesterol and keep folks well.
  What Senator Snowe and I are proposing is a market-oriented approach. 
It is based on the model that is used for Federal employees. It is 
market driven. It has choices. We would not see the kind of price-
control approach that is being advocated by some. I am very opposed to 
that kind of price-control orientation because what will happen is, if 
you just try to control prices for Medicare drugs, the costs will all 
be shifted to somebody else.
  Senator Snowe and I do not want to see a divorced mom at the age of 
27, with a modest income and two kids, have to pick up all the extra 
costs. So we are going with a market-oriented approach. I hope that in 
the days ahead, as a result of bills such as this, and others that I 
know are being sent to our colleagues--and the campaign we have 
launched here on the floor so that seniors will, as this poster says, 
send in copies of their prescription drug bills--we can show the people 
of this country that we are not going to wait until the next election 
or the election after that; we are going to find a way to come together 
now to do the job we were elected to do, which is to work in a 
bipartisan way.
  Unfortunately, that did not happen this week on the Comprehensive 
Test Ban Treaty. I wish it had. I am anxious to work with the Presiding 
Officer and my colleagues on the other side of aisle. We can do it on 
prescription drugs. We can do it on an issue that is foremost in the 
minds of millions of our families and our seniors.
  We have 20 percent of the Nation's older people spending more than 
$1,000 a year out of pocket on their prescription medicine.
  I described this afternoon an elderly woman with a monthly income of 
$1,179, who every month spends more than $500 on prescriptions. Let's 
show seniors such as that elderly woman who wrote from the Willamette 
Valley in my home State of Oregon that we can act now. She was 
skeptical. She has heard all the oratory and all the partisan rhetoric 
on this issue, and she is understandably skeptical.

  Senator Snowe and I are trying to mobilize a bipartisan coalition in 
this Senate to act in this session so that older people can get decent 
prescription drug coverage under Medicare. We should not wait until the 
next election. We were elected to act now and to act in a bipartisan 
way.
  I hope, as a result of this short statement today, that additional 
older people, as this poster says, will send us copies of the 
prescription drug bills with which they are faced.
  Senator Snowe and I intend to be back on this floor again and again 
and again through this session of Congress until we get action. We will 
be talking about it next week, and we are going to talk about it the 
following week and the week after that. It is not right to wait on an 
issue such as this that is so pressing to vulnerable older people such 
as those who have written me the letters I have described today.
  I am very grateful to my colleague, the other Senator from Maine, 
who, by the way, has a long record of being an advocate for consumer 
issues as well. And she knows how much I enjoy working with her. I 
thank her for this courtesy this afternoon.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  Ms. COLLINS addressed the Chair.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Maine.
  Ms. COLLINS. First, I thank the Senator for his kind comments and for 
bringing to the Senate's attention a very important issue.
  I ask unanimous consent that the Senator from Kansas and I be allowed 
to proceed in morning business in a colloquy for as much time as we may 
consume.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Is there objection?
  Without objection, it is so ordered.
  Ms. COLLINS. Thank you, Mr. President.

                          ____________________