[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 80 (Monday, June 17, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H3566]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




             PROVIDING ADEQUATE PRESCRIPTION DRUG COVERAGE

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 23, 2002, the gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized 
during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, earlier this month Congress made a 
choice. Republicans in this body passed legislation giving literally 
hundreds of billions in tax breaks, hundreds of billions of dollars, to 
the richest one-half of one percent of Americans, to deca-millionaires 
and to billionaires. The choice that Congress made was between a tax 
cut for the richest, most privileged Americans, and an adequate, 
legitimate real prescription drug benefit for America's seniors.
  This week, unfortunately, America's seniors will begin to pay the 
price for that choice that Congress made, that choice that Republican 
leadership pushed through Congress of tax cuts for the wealthiest 
Americans over a prescription drug benefit for America's seniors.
  Now, Republicans will say, as we will find in the Committee on Energy 
and Commerce this week as we mark up the prescription drug bill, 
Republicans will say that they in fact have a prescription drug bill 
that they are offering in committee. What they will not say is that 
prescription drug bill is very inadequate for seniors' needs.
  Their bill serves three purposes. Number one, it is the launching pad 
for Medicare privatization. If their prescription drug plan becomes 
law, it will be the beginning of full scale, turn-it-over-to-the-
insurance-companies privatization of Medicare, something clearly 
seniors in this country and the rest of us in this country do not want.
  The second purpose that their legislation will serve, their so-called 
prescription drug bill offered in committee this week, is it will shift 
Federal resources away from seniors and into tax cuts. We simply cannot 
give hundreds of billions of dollars in tax cuts to the most privileged 
people in society and still afford to do an adequate prescription drug 
benefit for seniors.
  The third purpose that the Republican bill serves that will be 
offered in committee this week on prescription drugs is it is what the 
drug industry wants. The drug industry wrote their legislation.
  Congressional Republicans couched these three motives in choice 
rhetoric. They will argue that seniors should not be forced into a one-
size-fits-all prescription drug program, that they deserve, quote-
unquote, a ``choice'' of private plans.
  Think about that. What kind of choice is actually desirable when it 
comes to drug coverage? A drug plan either covers the prescription 
drugs, or it does not cover the prescription drugs. Disbursing seniors 
into multiple complicated private plans serves the best interests of 
the drug industry, to be sure, the best interests of the drug industry, 
something that my friends on the other side of the aisle are always 
intent on doing; but it would undercut seniors' collective purchasing 
power, enabling the drug industry to continue charging their 
outrageously high prices.
  The Republican prescription drug plan, unlike the Democratic plan, 
the Republican plan does nothing about bringing down drug prices. Why? 
Because the prescription drug industry wrote their plan.
  Their approach chips away at the value of traditional Medicare, 
setting the stage for Medicare privatization. Both the Bush 
administration and congressional Republicans have argued that adding a 
real prescription drug benefit to Medicare is too expensive. That is 
why their proposal would still leave seniors liable for up to $3,000 of 
prescription drug expenses. It is hardly a real prescription drug plan 
if the senior still could be on the hook for $3,000.
  Retirees contributed to Medicare during their working years; and our 
current prosperity reflects their hard work over the last 2, 3, 4, 5 
decades. Adding real prescription drug coverage to Medicare is an 
unfulfilled responsibility that this institution, that this Congress, 
the Members of both parties, must fulfill. Seniors have earned, and 
they richly deserve, comprehensive health coverage, including 
modernizing Medicare by including a meaningful prescription drug 
benefit.
  The President and the Congress have a choice when it comes to drug 
coverage for seniors: we can stand up to the drug industry, devote the 
necessary resources to a drug benefit, bring prices down for 
prescription drugs and add a real drug benefit to Medicare; or, or we 
can cut taxes on the richest, most privileged 1 percent of the people 
in this country and pass a drug bill that only the prescription drug 
companies and their friends, their Republican friends in Congress, 
really want. The answer, Mr. Speaker, is pretty obvious.

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