[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 12 (Thursday, February 10, 2000)]
[House]
[Pages H336-H337]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                              {time}  1730
 URGING REPUBLICAN MEMBERS TO SIGN DISCHARGE PETITION ON H.R. 664, THE 
               PRESCRIPTION DRUG FAIRNESS FOR SENIORS ACT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore (Mr. Bass). Under a previous order of the 
House, the gentleman from Maine (Mr. Allen) is recognized for 5 
minutes.
  Mr. ALLEN. Mr. Speaker, Congress is back in session. We heard from 
the President the other night, and he laid out an agenda for this 
country of priorities that we need to work on during the course of this 
year. Many of those priorities in fact are the unfinished business of 
last year, when we did not accomplish all that we might have.
  The issue that I want to address this evening has to do with the high 
cost of prescription drugs for our seniors, because there is a problem 
that in the past year has only become much worse.
  Two years ago, in 1998, I first had a study done in my district that 
showed that seniors on average pay twice as much for their prescription 
medications as the drug companies' preferred customers. Those preferred 
customers are HMOs, hospitals, and the Federal government itself, which 
purchases drugs for Medicaid and for the Veterans Administration.
  In October of 1998, we released a second study in the first District 
of Maine. That study showed that people in Maine pay 72 percent more 
than Canadians and 102 percent more than Mexicans for the same drug in 
the same quantity from the same manufacturer.
  That price discrimination is going on all over the country. We have 
now had over 150 different studies, one study or the other 
demonstrating this price discrimination by the pharmaceutical industry 
against those who do not have insurance for their prescription drugs.
  Seniors make up 12 percent of the population, but they buy one-third 
of all prescription medications. Seniors, 37 percent of them have no 
coverage at all for their prescription medications. About 8 percent 
have prescription drug coverage through a MediGap policy, but those 
Medigap policies are very limited in terms of their benefits. Often 
they are capped out at $1,000 or $1,500 per year. Often the policies 
cost more than the benefit that they provide.
  About 8 percent of people in this country have prescription drug 
coverage through an HMO. Medicare beneficiaries have HMO coverage. But 
if we read the news about what is happening to HMOs providing coverage 
under Medicare, some of them are dropping coverage in areas entirely 
because it is not profitable. Most of them are lowering the cap that 
they provide for a benefit on prescription drugs, and most of them are 
increasing the premiums that they are asking people to pay.
  So HMOs under Medicare are no way to provide secure, reliable 
coverage for prescription drugs. The fact is that the industry charges 
whatever the market will bear for prescription drugs, and they give 
discounts to big customers, to favored customers, they give discounts 
to Canadians and Mexicans and Europeans, but seniors in this country 
pay the highest prices in the world.
  The fact is, the bottom line is that the most profitable industry in 
the country is charging the highest prices

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in the world to people who can least afford it, including our seniors.
  The bill that I introduced last year, H.R. 664, the Prescription Drug 
Fairness for Seniors Act, would deal with this problem by eliminating 
the price discrimination. The bill is very simple. It allows the 
government to negotiate lower prices for people who are on Medicare, 
people who are already in a Federal health care plan. It is called 
Medicare. It works, but it does not have prescription drug coverage, 
and it needs to.
  All my bill would do is allow pharmacies to buy drugs for Medicare 
beneficiaries at the best price given to the Federal government, either 
the price given to the Veterans Administration or the price paid by 
Medicaid.
  I thought that this bill would attract Members of the other side of 
the aisle when they understood it was a bill that created no new 
bureaucracy, it involved no significant amount of expenditure by the 
Federal government, and it would provide a discount of up to 40 percent 
for seniors in this country who really need the help and need it now.
  But the truth is that though we have 140 Democratic cosponsors of 
this legislation, not one Republican, not one has seen fit to step up 
and cosponsor this legislation.
  I grant that this is a battle. The pharmaceutical industry does not 
like this bill. The pharmaceutical industry is running TV ads all 
across the country touting what a wonderful, warm, and fuzzy industry 
it is, and how they do research and development that is important for 
the American people. About that, they are right. But what they are 
trying to do is block the President's prescription drug benefit plan. 
They are trying to block the progress that we are making in getting a 
discount for Medicare beneficiaries.
  This is a huge battle. On this battle, the Democrats are lining up, 
taking on the pharmaceutical industry. We are going to be introducing a 
discharge petition to bring this bill to the floor next week. We would 
like to have some Republican support. I certainly hope at some point we 
will get it.

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