[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 22 (Thursday, February 15, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1500-S1501]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]

      By Mr. BREAUX (for himself and Mr. Frist):
  S. 358. A bill to amend the Social Security Act to establish a 
Medicare Prescription Drug and Supplemental Benefit Program and for 
other purposes; to the Committee on Finance.
  Mr. FRIST. Mr. President, I am pleased to once again stand before the 
Senate and speak on the critical issue of Medicare reform and 
prescription drugs. Over the past 3 years, I have worked extensively on 
this issue with my friend Senator Breaux, and we have introduced two 
pieces of bipartisan legislation comprehensively reforming and 
strengthening the Medicare program. Therefore, I am thrilled today to 
reintroduce these bills along with Senator Breaux as we take the next 
step in this process towards improving Medicare.
  No one disputes that Medicare needs changes. Every year, Congress 
considers numerous proposals to update the Medicare program--some more 
far-reaching than others. We have a strong consensus on the importance 
of a prescription drug benefit to Medicare beneficiaries. What remains 
for us, then, is to strengthen the Medicare program in a way that will 
bring it into the 21st century--by allowing seniors to have a 
prescription drug benefit, bringing the overall benefits package into 
line with what most other Americans receive, and giving the program the 
flexibility to change and grow over the years.
  We all know Medicare's shortcomings. It is projected to be bankrupt 
by 2025. It only covers 53 percent of beneficiaries' health care costs, 
making seniors spend an average of $2,000 per year out-of-pocket on 
health care. It does not cover prescription drugs, long-term care, 
eyeglasses or dental care. As the fourth-largest item in the budget, 
its spending, left unchecked will consume an ever-increasing share of 
the Federal budget. A generational time-bomb awaits it as 77 million 
baby boomers begin to enter the program in 2010. It is an example of 
Congressional

[[Page S1501]]

micromanagement at its worst, and its regulatory system encompasses 
more than 130,000 pages of HCFA regulations.
  Designed in 1965, the Medicare program remains mired in the past. 
When Medicare was first enacted in 1965, it had the goal of providing 
seniors necessary acute health care that would otherwise have been 
unaffordable. However today's health care delivery systems are far more 
advanced than the program's creators ever imagined. It has simply not 
kept pace with the changing nature of health care. We must fix the 
program--not just continue to tinker around the edges.
  I believe that the overwhelming public support for a prescription 
drug benefit gives us a real opportunity to improve Medicare in a 
bipartisan, comprehensive manner. Seniors absolutely need prescription 
drug benefits, but a free-standing drug benefit that fails to address 
the underlying program only exacerbates Medicare's financial and 
administrative troubles while removing the political will to tackle the 
pressing need for system-wide reform.
  Therefore, any reform legislation, while including prescription drug 
coverage, must also address these other issues facing the program. The 
first bill we introduce today, ``Breaux-Frist I,'' was the first 
bipartisan attempt to comprehensively reform Medicare in the program's 
35-year history. Breaux-Frist I draws heavily on the recommendations of 
the National Bipartisan Commission on the Future of Medicare and is 
modeled after the Federal Employees Health Benefit Plan, (FEHBP), a 
plan through which we and millions of other Federal employees receive 
health care. This is a plan with a forty year track record of success 
in providing quality comprehensive health coverage.

  Breaux-Frist I does three main things. First, it replaces the current 
system for competing health plans in Medicare, which is not working 
very well, with a new system based on the FEHBP. A new Medicare Board, 
not HCFA, would oversee the competition. It also requires that all 
Medicare plans, including the HCFA-sponsored plans, have a high option 
with prescription drug coverage and a limit on seniors' out-of-pocket 
costs. The Government would make the least cost high option plan 
available to low-income seniors for free and would share a part of the 
cost with all beneficiaries choosing a high option plan. Finally, it 
gives HCFA the opportunity to manage the government-run plans more like 
a business, with less regulation and less need for Congressional 
micromanagement.
  Building on Breaux-Frist I and the findings of the Medicare 
Commission, our second piece of legislation, ``Breaux-Frist II,'' takes 
the first steps towards long-term Medicare reform while adding a much 
needed outpatient prescription drug benefit to the program. The bill 
will provide seniors the option to choose the kind of health care 
coverage that best suits their individual needs, including enhanced 
benefits, outpatient prescription drug coverage, and protections 
against high out-of-pocket drug costs.
  Breaux-Frist II establishes the Competitive Medicare Agency, CMA, an 
independent, executive-branch agency to spearhead an advanced level of 
Medicare management and oversight--leaving behind the intransigent 
bureaucracy and outdated mindset infecting the program and instead 
guaranteeing seniors choice, health care security, and improved 
benefits and delivery of care.
  Vital to this bill is the Prescription Drug and Supplemental Benefit 
Program that provides beneficiaries outpatient prescription drugs and 
other additional benefits through new Medicare Prescription Plus plans 
offered by private entities or through Medicare+Choice plans. Seniors 
are guaranteed a minimum benefit but also have the choice of other drug 
benefit packages. I recognize more than anyone that a one-size-fits-all 
approach to health care does not work. It is important to pass along 
the same choices we, as members of Congress, have. Seniors deserve no 
less.
  The bill also provides drug coverage premium subsidies for low-income 
beneficiaries and addresses the high costs of drugs by ensuring that no 
beneficiary will ever pay retail prices for prescription drugs again.
  Both of these bills will prove successful in placing Medicare on the 
right road to financial stability and quality health care. They will 
ensure more competition, provide a universal prescription drug benefit, 
protect low-income and rural Americans and create new measures of 
Medicare's financial solvency.
  Medicare must be modernized to provide seniors integrated health care 
choices, including outpatient prescription drug coverage. By moving 
forward on this legislation, we can truly provide choice and security 
for our Medicare beneficiaries to ensure their individual health care 
needs are met, today and well into the future. I look forward to 
working with Senator Breaux, my colleagues on both sides of the aisle, 
and the White House towards this critical goal.
                                 ______