[Congressional Record Volume 147, Number 25 (Wednesday, February 28, 2001)]
[Senate]
[Pages S1669-S1670]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             KEEPING PROMISES ON PRESCRIPTION DRUG COVERAGE

  Mr. DAYTON. Mr. President, I rise today to give my first speech on 
the Senate floor, mindful of what a great privilege it is to stand here 
and also what a tremendous opportunity it is to be of service to 
others.
  I am also mindful that I was elected last fall for special reasons. I 
made some very important promises to Minnesotans, promises that I 
intend to keep. Foremost among them was my promise to Minnesota senior 
citizens to help design and pass prescription drug coverage that would 
be available to everyone who is presently receiving Medicare.
  Far too many times last year, I saw the suffering and the fear which 
our elderly were experiencing. I saw it in their weary faces, in their 
eyes filled with tears, and in their trembling hands. For them, the 
promises of Social Security and Medicare were unraveling, promises of 
retirement years with reliable economic security, free at least from 
the financial uncertainties and emergencies. But in their lives, higher 
and higher prescription drug prices destroyed their financial health 
and ravaged their emotional well-being.
  So last spring I began my ``Rx Express'' bus trips to Canada. 
Borrowing this idea from others, I took busloads of Minnesota senior 
citizens to Canada where they could buy the same prescription medicines 
at far lower prices--often for half the cost in the United States, or 
less, for the same medicine, produced by exactly the same manufacturer.
  I rode the first bus myself, leaving St. Cloud, MN, at 7 a.m. with 42 
senior citizens and returning almost 18 hours later. This was no 
pleasure cruise. In fact, we spent the entire time crowded together on 
a compact bus, stopping only for customs, a Canadian doctor's office, a 
pharmacist, and for dinner. As we traveled those long hours, I was 
struck by the awful absurdity of our trip, because we in Minnesota 
pride ourselves on having world-class medical care facilities. In fact, 
people come from all over the world to Minnesota for the best possible 
health care --places such as the Mayo Clinic, the University of 
Minnesota Hospital, and Children's Hospital. Yet here we were, enduring 
a miserable travel marathon so that our senior citizens--the most 
elderly, frail, and vulnerable among us--could save precious dollars on 
the costs of their life-saving medicines.
  Believe me, their cost savings were very substantial. We took a dozen 
of these bus trips to Canada last year, and the average savings per 
senior was $350. One gentlemen saved over $1,400 on the cost of his 
U.S. drugs for the 6 months. Another woman said to me that her life had 
been saved twice--once when her medicine became available, and the 
second time when she could actually afford them.
  I will continue the Rx Express buses by donating my Senate paychecks 
to the Minnesota Senior Federation or some other organization that will 
use my contributions to continue them. However, the solution to 
prescription drug affordability is not to bus every Minnesotan to 
Canada. Rather, it is to provide prescription drug coverage to every 
senior citizen across America.

  When I was home last week, many elderly Minnesotans asked me, when 
will this kind of program become a reality? For them, the need is 
immediate and acute. So their need for us to act is immediate and 
acute. Unfortunately, today Congress shows little sign of reacting with 
urgency to this emergency. Last year, Members deadlocked over the form 
this coverage should take. Some favored adding prescription drug

[[Page S1670]]

coverage as a direct benefit under Medicare. Others wanted to assist 
seniors in purchasing private insurance policies to provide such 
coverage. Other proposals were introduced, but none gained enough 
support to pass into law.
  So here we are again, and here again are the elderly in Minnesota and 
in 49 other States waiting for us to do what almost all of us say we 
want to do. As the President said last night, no senior in America 
should have to choose between buying food and buying prescriptions. The 
President is absolutely right. Yet today, across our country, retired 
Americans are being forced to make that same terrible choice: Don't 
eat, turn off the heat, or stop taking life-enhancing or even life-
preserving medicines.
  The President also said last night that Medicare must be modernized 
and we must make sure every senior on Medicare can choose a health care 
plan that offers prescription drugs. Again, the President is right. His 
words offer hope to millions of seniors who do not have and cannot 
afford such coverage. But as my mother used to say to me when I was 
growing up, actions speak louder than words. She usually said that when 
my actions or inactions were contradicting my words. For this Congress, 
that test begins today.
  Were all the commitments I made just words? Were all the promises I 
made and heard others make just words? Were the President's assurances 
last night just words? I know I meant what I said, and I truly believe 
President Bush meant what he said last night. But now we must act. Now 
we must act.
  The same proposals that were made last year can be considered again. 
I strongly prefer providing direct coverage under Medicare. I believe 
it best meets the essential requirements for any good plan--that the 
program would provide an immediate benefit; the plan would have 
universal coverage, the benefit being available to all eligible 
beneficiaries; the plan would negotiate discounts, allowing both 
seniors and the Government to get the lowest prices, negotiating price 
reductions just as every large business with self-insurers or every 
large HMO regularly does on behalf of its clients; the plan would 
provide catastrophic coverage for beneficiaries who have the highest 
drug costs.
  However, I also know that these are some of the very reasons the 
pharmaceutical industry and others will fiercely oppose this particular 
program. I don't want to participate in another deadlock that prevented 
Congress from acting last year, nor do I want to participate in 
creating new excuses for why Congress has not passed universal drug 
coverage which the President can sign this year. I prefer it to be this 
month, but certainly no less than this year.

  That timetable surely means designing and enacting a prescription 
drug program that is separate from and passes before so-called 
comprehensive Medicare reform. If that lengthy review and reform points 
to modifications or improvements in our previously enacted prescription 
drug coverage, then so be it. If we can design a better, less costly, 
more efficient program, then terrific, but as Franklin Delano Roosevelt 
said to his Cabinet when he took office in 1933: Try something. If it 
doesn't work, try something else, but for God's sake, try something.
  We can adopt one of the programs that has already been proposed or, 
in the President's spirit of bipartisanship, we can merge two of last 
year's competing proposals providing, for example, direct Medicare 
coverage for seniors earning up to 175 percent of the poverty level and 
for seniors earning over that amount, private insurance policies. Then 
we can see which one works better. What is important is to get 
something working now.
  President Dwight Eisenhower once said: I think the people want peace 
so much that one of these days governments better get out of their way 
and let them have it. In the same way, I believe America's senior 
citizens want prescription drug coverage so much that our Government 
had better let them have it. The sooner the better. I yield the floor 
and suggest the absence of a quorum.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. The clerk will call the roll.
  The senior assistant bill clerk proceeded to call the roll.
  Mr. BYRD. Mr. President, I ask unanimous consent the order for the 
quorum call be dispensed with.
  The PRESIDING OFFICER. Without objection, it is so ordered.

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