[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 15 (Wednesday, February 16, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H461]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




         TIME TO DO RIGHT BY OUR SENIORS ON PRESCRIPTION DRUGS

  (Mr. SHOWS asked and was given permission to address the House for 1 
minute and to revise and extend his remarks.)
  Mr. SHOWS. Mr. Speaker, I have had the opportunity to visit with many 
of my senior citizens to talk about the high cost of medicine.
  Let me tell you about one of my constituents, Ms. Lucille Bruce. Ms. 
Bruce lives in Clinton, Mississippi. She enjoyed all the freedoms of 
being a senior citizen until she started to pay the high cost of 
prescription medication and had to move in with her daughter. She pays 
hundreds of dollars each month for prescription medicine while living 
on a fixed income.
  Ms. Bruce told me without her daughter, she did not know how she 
would make it, and she wonders and is concerned about seniors who do 
not have the family support that she has. She often feels a burden on 
her daughter. She is going to have some more hospital visits, and it 
may result in more costs to her and her daughter.
  Because of Ms. Bruce and millions of others, I am filing a discharge 
petition today, H.R. 664, the Prescription Drug Fairness for Seniors 
Act. We cannot wait; our seniors sure cannot wait. For every day of 
inaction there are seniors out there doing without medication.
  It is time to do the right thing and make them favorite customers, 
just like the large HMOs and the Federal Government.
  Mr. Speaker, folks like Ms. Bruce need our help.

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