[Congressional Record Volume 146, Number 78 (Tuesday, June 20, 2000)]
[House]
[Page H4679]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




               THE REPUBLICAN PRESCRIPTION DRUG PROPOSAL

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under the Speaker's announced policy of 
January 19, 1999, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, the last couple of weeks have 
produced some of the most spectacular propaganda we have seen here in 
some time. It relates to the Republicans Medicare prescription drug 
proposal. First PHRMA, the drug industry and prescription drug 
manufacturers' lobbying group, launched an advertising campaign in the 
newspaper Roll Call and other papers claiming that a plan like the 
Republican proposal could cut prices by 30 to 39 percent.
  By expressing their exuberant support for this plan and its alleged 
results, the drug industry as much as said it can comfortably weather 
price cuts in the 30 to 39 percent price range. If that is the case, 
the drug industry should do us all a favor and simply make the cuts in 
price. It is a lot easier than requiring seniors to go into a 
prescription drug coverage market that does not exist to purchase a 
stand-alone product that cannot stand alone.
  The second wave of rhetoric came yesterday when Chairman Thomas 
announced the GOP prescription drug plan which relies on private 
insurers to offer individual prescription drug coverage saying it would 
cut prices twice as much as the Democrats Medicare based plan. If only 
it were true. The Congressional Budget Office said the Republican drug 
plan may cut costs by 25 percent, not through lower prices but by 
restricting access to medically necessary drugs.
  It is an important division. I will say it again. The Republican plan 
saves money not by miraculously convincing drug companies to lower 
their prices but instead by limiting access for senior citizens to 
medically necessary prescription drugs. It cuts costs by decreasing the 
value of the prescription drug benefit. The insurers win, the drug 
companies win, the government wins but senior citizens lose.
  The Republican plan gives insurance companies carte blanche to do 
what they are doing today, that is, put price tags on treatment 
decisions and deny coverage for medically necessary treatment. Sound 
familiar? The President's plan is explicit in requiring coverage, on 
the other hand, for any medically necessary drug prescribed by a 
doctor, which makes sense given it is the doctor, not the insurer, who 
should be and is making medical decisions and who is actually treating 
the patient.
  The Republican plan guarantees nothing other than assistance for low 
income seniors. Prescription drugs, however, are not just a low income 
problem. Seniors who thought they were financially secure are watching 
their savings go straight into the pockets of drug makers. Some of my 
colleagues are trying to tell seniors that there will be a choice of 
reliable, affordable private prescription drug insurance plans 
available to them. Based on what? Certainly not history. Even the 
insurance industry is balking at the idea. It says something that 
insurers do not sell prescription drug coverage on a stand-alone basis 
today, even to young and to healthy individuals. That is because it 
does not make sense.
  Medicare is reliable. Medicare is a large enough insurance program to 
accommodate the risks associated with prescription drug coverage. 
Individual stand-alone prescription drug policies are not.
  Some in this body are actually trying to convince seniors who stand 
firmly behind Medicare that expanding the current benefit package is 
less efficient, more onerous, than manufacturing a new bureaucracy, as 
the Republican plan does, and conjuring up a new insurance market. 
Seniors are simply too smart for that.
  I do not want to ask seniors in my district and across the country to 
rely on a market that does not want the business to provide a benefit 
not suited to stand-alone coverage to a population that, let us face 
it, has never been served well by the private insurance market.
  I do not want seniors in my district and across the country to be 
coerced into managed care plans in order to avoid dealing with three 
different insurance plans, with Medicare, with Medigap and with 
individual prescription drug coverage.
  I do not want seniors in my district or across the country to receive 
a letter from their employer telling them that their retiree 
prescription drug coverage has been terminated on the premise, quote, 
that the government is offering private insurance now.
  I do not want to forsake volume discounts and economies of scale by 
segmenting the largest purchasing pool in this country, and then waste 
trust fund dollars on insurance company margins, on insurance company 
market expenses, on insurance company huge executive salaries.
  I do not think the individual health insurance market is a reasonable 
model for Medicare prescription drug benefits. In fact, as anyone who 
has had to purchase or sale coverage in that market knows the 
individual health insurance market is not even a good model for 
individual health insurance. It is the poster child for selection 
problems, for rate spirals and for insurance scams.
  The very fact that the drug industry backs Citizens for a Better 
Medicare supports the private plan approach is a giant strike against 
it. The drug industry and their puppet organization clearly feel that 
undercutting seniors' collective purchasing power, relegating seniors 
to private stand-alone prescription drug plans, is the key, underscore 
this, is the key to preserving discriminatory monopolistically set 
outrageously high prices.
  Mr. Speaker, I hope that Members of this Congress read the fine print 
when we decide these Medicare prescription drug bills.

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