[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 32 (Tuesday, March 21, 2000)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1482-S1483]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]
PRESCRIPTION DRUG COVERAGE FOR SENIOR CITIZENS
Mr. WYDEN. Mr. President, for the last 3 months I have come to the
floor of the Senate on more than 20 occasions to talk about the need
for this Congress to pass legislation that would cover senior citizens'
prescription drug needs under Medicare. I have said again and again
that this country can no longer afford not to cover prescription drugs.
Before we broke for the work period at home, I talked about a case,
for example, from Hillsboro, OR, of a senior citizen who had to be
placed in a hospital for more than 6 weeks because he could not afford
his medicine on an outpatient basis. Just think about that wasted
money. The older person could not get help on an outpatient basis for
his medicine, and the doctor said we have no choice but to put that
person with a leg infection in the hospital so he can get prescription
drug coverage under Part A of the Medicare program.
Today, I brought with me a letter from an elderly woman in Phoenix,
OR. She receives $1,100 per month in Social Security. Her prescription
drug bills run $1,000 a month. She is 74 years old, and she wrote me:
What can you do to help?
I think it would be a tragedy for this Congress to not go forward on
a bipartisan basis and enact meaningful relief for the Nation's older
people who are getting clobbered with these prescription drug bills.
Again and again, we are hearing from seniors in these instances where
they have been hospitalized because they could not afford their
medicine on an outpatient basis, where when they are done paying for
their prescription drugs for the month, they have only a couple hundred
dollars left to pay for food, heat, and housing. In a country as strong
and prosperous as ours, we can't allow this kind of tragedy to
continue. I think it is absolutely critical that this be addressed on a
bipartisan basis.
For many months now, I have teamed up with the Senator from Maine,
Ms. Snowe, on a bipartisan bill. We use marketplace forces to ensure
that older people have bargaining power in the private sector to be in
a better position to afford their medicine. Right now, these HMOs get
big discounts; they have lots of clout in the marketplace--HMOs and the
private sector plans. If you are an older person who walks into a local
pharmacy, you in effect have to subsidize those big buyers. You get
shellacked twice. Medicare doesn't cover prescription medicine and, in
effect, in the marketplace you subsidize the people with clout.
The Snowe-Wyden legislation uses private sector bargaining power,
along the lines of what we have in the Congress with the Federal
Employees
[[Page S1483]]
Health Benefits system, so that the dollars seniors use for private
health insurance are pooled, and they have real negotiating power so
they are in a position to get more reasonable prices for their
medicine.
Some have said we ought to just put the Government in charge of this,
sort of have rate regulation. Well, I think that would be a big
mistake. The biggest concern I have about that approach is it would
cause a lot of cost shifting. You could have the Government be the big
kid on the block and drive the system through the Health Care Financing
Administration, but you would put all the costs onto somebody who is 27
or 28 and is working hard trying to get ahead, and their prescription
drug bill would have gone up because the Congress didn't address this
Medicare issue in the right way.
Fortunately--and I think he deserves enormous credit--Senator Daschle
has been working to try to reconcile the various approaches. He has
talked with me about this issue, almost on a daily basis, in an effort
to try to have the Senate come together and enact meaningful relief. He
stakes out principles that I think can be supported on both sides of
the aisle--principles such as making sure the program is voluntary,
that no senior citizen be required to do anything; if they wanted to
keep their current coverage, they would be allowed to do that. We want
to make sure the action we take on prescription drugs is consistent
with long-term Medicare reform. I think the approach I have advocated,
in terms of creating more choices and more options in the marketplace,
is consistent with responsible Medicare reform.
We have talked about bargaining power in the private sector, the way
the responsible private insurance companies have acted. I think that is
something that will attract Members on both sides of the aisle. I think
Senator Daschle is absolutely right in terms of trying to bring the
Senate together to find the common ground and pass meaningful
legislation.
We will have a chance this week to make the first significant step in
the Senate toward passing this legislation. As the Budget Committee
meets--and I sit on the Budget Committee, and Senator Snowe sits on the
Budget Committee--we will have a chance to ensure that in this budget,
which is not just facts and figures but, really, the hopes and
aspirations of the American people--we, in effect, set aside the funds
needed to go forward and enact a meaningful prescription drug program
for the Nation's older people.
I don't want to see this Congress adjourn without making this
important addition to the Medicare program. There is not a single
expert in the health field--Democrat or Republican--who doesn't believe
that if you designed the Medicare program from scratch today, you would
not cover prescription drugs. They all think it is something that is
essential to meaningful Medicare reform. I intend to keep coming back
to this floor again and again and again throughout this session of the
Congress to talk about prescription medicine.
For about 7 years, before I had the honor of being elected to the
other body, I was director of the Gray Panthers at home. We believed
that prescription drug coverage in Medicare was important then. But,
frankly, it is vastly more important now because the drugs of this
century essentially aren't just drugs that, as we saw back then, are
primarily to help people when they are sick; the new drugs are
absolutely key to helping folks to stay well. They help folks to lower
blood pressure and cholesterol. It is a way to hold down Medicare
costs. Because of the result of folks being able to stay healthy, they
don't land in the hospital and incur enormous costs that are engendered
by Part A of the Medicare program.
I am going to keep coming to the floor of this body to talk about the
need for bipartisan action on prescription drugs, to urge the Senate to
follow the counsel of Senator Daschle. I know Senator Snowe and others
on the other side of the aisle are interested in finding common ground.
I am going to keep urging that we work on this issue and not adjourn
this session of Congress until we have provided this relief to the
Nation's older people. I come again with a whole sheaf of cases of
older people who are writing and asking what we can do to help. They
are asking Congress to act this year, not put this off until after the
election and use it as a political football again.
I think we owe it to the Nation's older people and their families to
address this issue, as Senator Daschle suggests, in this Congress; that
we come together as Members of the Senate to make this improvement to
the Medicare program that is long overdue. I intend to keep coming back
to the floor of this body again and again and again reading these
direct and very poignant accounts about why this coverage is so
important until we get this legislation enacted.
I yield the floor.
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