[Congressional Record Volume 145, Number 163 (Wednesday, November 17, 1999)]
[Senate]
[Pages S14688-S14689]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                           PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

  Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, I wanted to take a few minutes to talk, as 
I have on several occasions recently, about the issue of prescription 
drugs and the Nation's elderly. You certainly can't open up a major 
publication these days without reading about this issue.
  The New York Times, on Sunday last, had an excellent article. Time 
magazine, which came out in the last couple of days, had a lengthy 
discussion of prescription drugs and seniors. These are all very 
captivating discussions, but almost all of them end with the author's 
judgment that nothing is going to get done in Congress about this 
critical issue. They go on and on for pages and, finally, the author 
winds around to the conclusion that this issue has been tied up in 
partisanship and the kind of bickering that you see so often in 
Washington, DC. There you have it. Case closed. Lots of arguing but no 
relief for the Nation's older people. Lots of politics but no results.
  So what I have been trying to do, in an effort to break the gridlock 
on that issue, is to come to the floor of the Senate and talk 
specifically about a bipartisan piece of legislation, the Snowe-Wyden 
bill, which has received what amounts to a majority of Senators' 
support at this point because they have already voted for the funding 
plan that we envisage, and to talk about how the Senate could come 
forward with real relief for the Nation's older people and do it in a 
bipartisan way.
  As part of the effort to break the gridlock, as this poster next to 
me indicates, I hope seniors will send to each of us copies of their 
prescription drug bills. As a result of seniors and their families 
being involved in this way, this will help to bring about a bipartisan 
effort in the Senate and actually win passage of the legislation and 
bring about relief for older people.
  The Snowe-Wyden legislation is called the SPICE bill, the Senior 
Prescription Insurance Coverage Equity Act. It ought to be a subject 
Members of Congress know something about because the Snowe-Wyden bill 
is based on the Federal Employees Health Benefits Plan. It is not some 
alien, one-size-fits-all Federal price control regime but something 
that offers a lot of choice and alternatives and uses the forces of the 
marketplace to deliver good health care to Members of Congress and 
their families.
  Senator Snowe and I have essentially used that model for the approach 
that we want to take in delivering prescription drug benefits for the 
Nation's older people. Fifty-four Members of the Senate, as part of the 
budget resolution, said they would vote for a specific way to fund the 
legislation. What I have tried to do is come to the floor on a number 
of occasions recently and as a result of folks reading this poster and 
sending copies of their prescription drug bills to us individually in 
the Senate in Washington, DC, I hope to be able to show the need in our 
country is enormous and to help catalyze bipartisan action.
  Tonight, in addition to reading briefly from some of the bills I have 
received in recent days, I am going to talk a little bit about how it 
is not going to be possible to solve this problem unless the approach 
the Senate devises, in addition to being bipartisan, addresses the 
question of affordable insurance. For example, this Time magazine 
article that came out today--a very interesting and very thoughtful 
piece and I commend the author for most of what is written--talks about 
the role of the Internet. It says there are going to be a variety of 
proposals debated on the floor of the Senate. But with the Internet, 
people are going to just try to go out and buy prescription drugs and 
it goes into various details about how seniors can buy prescriptions on 
line.

  I was director of the Gray Panthers at home in Oregon for about 7 
years before I was elected to the Congress. Suffice it to say, I can 
assure you that some of the most frail and vulnerable older people in 
our country are not going to be able to buy their prescriptions on line 
the way Time magazine envisages. But perhaps even more important, if an 
older person is spending more than half of his or her Social Security 
check on prescription medicine--and I have given example after example 
in recent days of older people in our country, at home in our States. I 
am very pleased my friend and colleague, Senator Smith, is in the chair 
because he has talked often about the need for bipartisan action on 
this issue to help seniors.
  I think both of us would agree that if you have an older person who 
is spending more than half of their monthly income on prescription 
drugs--more than half of their Social Security checks, for example, and 
a lot of them get nothing but Social Security--those folks are going to 
need decent insurance coverage. They need to be in a position to get 
insurance coverage that will pick up a significant hunk of their 
prescription drug costs.
  The Time magazine article tells you all about buying drugs over the 
Internet. But a lot of those senior citizens with an income of $11,000 
or $12,000 a year--a modest income--when they are spending more than 
half of their income on prescription drugs are not going to find an 
answer on the Internet. They are going to need decent insurance 
coverage.
  The Snowe-Wyden legislation envisages--is a detailed plan, it is a 
specific plan, a bipartisan plan, S. 1480--and lays out a system that 
involves marketplace choices and competitive forces in the private 
sector. Seniors will be in a position to have real clout when it comes 
to purchasing private insurance.
  I think what is so sad about the situation with respect to our older 
people and prescription drugs is they get hit by a double whammy. 
Medicare doesn't cover prescription medicine. That is the way the 
program began back in the middle 1960s.
  Second, a lot of the big buyers, health maintenance organizations, or 
a plan, can go out and negotiate a discount. And the senior who walks 
into a

[[Page S14689]]

pharmacy in our home State in Coos Bay or Beaverton or Pendleton or 
some part of our home State, ends up, in effect, paying a premium 
because the big buyers are able to negotiate discounts.
  It is critical that seniors be in a position to get more affordable 
private insurance for their prescription medicine.
  Under the Snowe-Wyden legislation for seniors on a modest income, 
other than a copayment or deductible, the legislation would pick up the 
entire part of that senior's insurance premium that covers prescription 
drugs.
  That is something that will help that frail older person. It is not 
going to be the Internet that is going to be a panacea for that older 
person but legislation that helps that elderly widow or retired 
gentleman afford private insurance coverage is something that will be 
of help to them. That is what the Snowe-Wyden legislation is all about.
  Tonight, I want to read from a few letters I have received in the 
last couple of days. And I will continue in the days ahead as the 
Senate wraps up--we hope it won't be too many more days ahead--to bring 
these kinds of cases to the floor of the Senate in an effort to try to 
see the Senate come together in a bipartisan way and provide some 
relief for older people.
  One elderly couple, for example, wrote me about their medical 
situation, reporting that both had recently had heart surgery and one 
of them, in addition, had a stroke. They are taking blood-thinner 
drugs. They are taking important cholesterol-lowering drugs--Lipitor--
and drugs for lowering blood pressure. They are breaking that 
particular medicine in half because they cannot afford their 
prescriptions, and then they are taking a drug which serves as an 
antidepressant.
  This couple has a combined income of around $1,500 a month. For the 
month of October alone, they spent $888 on just the drugs I mentioned. 
Over half of their monthly income is going for prescription medicine.
  I don't believe there is going to be relief for that elderly couple 
over the Internet. They are not going to be able to deal with that 
financial predicament where they spend over half of their monthly 
income on prescription medicine through some ``www'' opportunity on the 
Internet. They are going to need decent insurance coverage.
  That is what the bipartisan Snowe-Wyden legislation tries to provide.
  The second case I would like to touch on tonight comes from our home 
State. An elderly woman wrote me to report that in recent days she 
spent more than $800 on her prescription medicine. She writes: ``I'm on 
a fixed income. It's just getting harder and harder. Medicare help with 
prescriptions is a real need.''
  Finally, a third letter that I think sums up the kind of predicament 
that a lot of seniors in our State are facing comes from Beaverton 
where an elderly couple is trying to make ends meet essentially with 
just Social Security and a little bit of help from family.
  When they are finished paying for their prescription drugs--this is 
an elderly couple in Beaverton, OR, in our home State--they have 
$107.40 left over to live for the month.
  Just think about that. It is not an isolated kind of case. Think 
about what it has to be like for an older couple to have $107 left over 
for living after they have paid for their prescription medicine.
  In the last sentence, this particular elderly woman just asked a 
question: ``Can you help?''
  I think that really sums it up.
  I think the American people want to see if the Senate, instead of the 
usual tired routine of bickering and arguing and inaction, will produce 
a bipartisan plan to provide real relief.
  What I find so striking, and why I am so proud to have teamed up with 
the Republican Senator from Maine on this bipartisan issue, is that 
when I am asked at home--I had a town meeting a couple of days ago on 
the Oregon coast. And the President often has the same kind of 
community session. I was asked about whether the Nation can afford to 
cover prescription medicine.
  My answer is, if you are reading these bills, that America cannot 
afford not to cover prescription medicine because these drugs, as in 
the case I described initially, are drugs that keep people well. They 
help people deal with blood pressure. They help people deal with 
cholesterol. These are drugs to help keep people healthy. If you keep 
them healthy, they don't land in the hospital where they rack up those 
huge charges for Part A of Medicare. I cited repeatedly these 
anticoagulant medicines.
  Evidence shows that for perhaps $1,000 a year, seniors could get a 
comprehensive program of anticoagulant medicines that can help prevent 
strokes. We have seen again and again that if you can't get this kind 
of preventive medical help and you incur a stroke, it costs more than 
$100,000 to pick up the cost.
  That is really the choice, it seems to me, for the Senate. I think 
the Presiding Officer of the Senate and I have shown in our home States 
that it is possible on a whole host of issues, frankly, issues that a 
lot of people think are more divisive than even prescription medicine, 
to come together in a bipartisan way. I am hopeful the Senate can show 
that as well. We have seen one poll after another demonstrating that 
the American people want Congress to provide real relief.
  In the last couple of weeks, I have seen several polls which indicate 
that helping frail and vulnerable seniors with prescription drug 
coverage through Medicare is one of the top two or three concerns for 
this country.
  Instead of these articles that we are seeing coming out of Time 
magazine and New York Times and others saying we probably won't be 
finished, and there won't be an effective answer, I would like to see 
the Senate show we can really follow through and produce for the older 
people of this country.
  In the days left of this session--we all hope there won't be many 
more--until we get comprehensive bipartisan legislation that provides 
the elderly real relief, I intend to keep coming to the floor of the 
Senate to talk about this issue.
  I hope folks who are listening tonight will send in copies of their 
prescription drug bills.
  This poster says it all: ``Send in your prescription drug bills.'' 
Send them to each of us in the Senate in Washington D.C.
  I can tell you the bills that are coming into my office--they are 
really coming in now as a result of our taking the opportunity to 
discuss this issue on the floor of the Senate--say that this is an 
urgent need.
  There are people who write who are conservative. There are people who 
write who are liberals, Democrats, Republicans, and independents, and 
all across the political spectrum who say: Get the job done. We are not 
interested in the traditional bickering and fighting about who gets 
credit, whose turf is being invaded, and which particular parochial 
kind of issue is being placed ahead of the national wellbeing.

  This Nation's seniors and this Nation's families want us to come 
together and deal with this issue.
  I intend to come back on the floor of the Senate again and again 
until the Senate does.
  Mr. President, I yield the floor.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The Senator from Alabama.

                          ____________________