[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 85 (Monday, June 24, 2002)]
[House]
[Page H3841]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                       PRESCRIPTION DRUG BENEFIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Under a previous order of the House, the 
gentleman from Ohio (Mr. Brown) is recognized for 5 minutes.
  Mr. BROWN of Ohio. Mr. Speaker, early Friday morning, under cover of 
night, the Republican plan to create a Medicare prescription drug 
benefit was forced through the Committee on Energy and Commerce on 
strict party lines.
  The prescription drug proposal made by the Republican leadership in 
Congress is so farfetched and so inadequate that it is an insult to the 
seniors it alleges to help. This legislation calls for private 
insurance companies to deliver drug coverage, and the coverage is 
minimal.
  We sought to improve the bill, but our efforts were stymied by a 
coalition of the Republican leadership and their corporate sponsors, 
the brand name drug industry.
  Democrats insist that any prescription drug plan for seniors should 
be administered through Medicare, the program seniors know and trust. 
We have insisted the benefits be at least as generous as the coverage 
enjoyed by Members of Congress, and we sought to lower drug prices, 
ending drug industry patent abuses and enhancing competition in the 
prescription drug marketplace.
  The need for a prescription drug benefit under Medicare is 
undisputed. Twelve million American seniors lack any form of drug 
coverage. This situation is made worse by the fact that American 
seniors and others without drug coverage pay the highest prices in the 
world for their prescriptions.
  This is not the first time Republicans have attempted to capitalize 
on the need of America's seniors for a drug benefit but is the most 
blatant. Republican after Republican will come to the House floor in 
the next 3 days, saying seniors deserve a drug benefit as good as 
Members of Congress have. Unfortunately, though, according to the 
nonpartisan Congressional Research Service, the Republican plan is 40 
percent less than the coverage offered to Members of Congress.
  During last week's markup, I offered an amendment that would replace 
the standard coverage in the Republican bill with the same coverage 
offered to Members of Congress.

                              {time}  1930

  But the night before the amendment was offered, Republicans adjourned 
the committee markup early so that they could attend a $30 million 
fundraising dinner underwritten by Glaxo-Wellcome, a British 
pharmaceutical company which gave $250,000 that night to the Republican 
Party. When Republicans returned from that fundraiser in which the drug 
companies gave well over a million dollars in total, when they returned 
from that fundraiser the next day, it came as no surprise that 
Republican colleagues voted my amendment down, meaning that the House 
will be forced to vote this week on legislation that would provide 
seniors with a significantly less drug benefit than Members of the 
Congress. In other words, Republicans are going to give Members of 
Congress a much better drug benefit than seniors will enjoy.
  The Republican bill is not designed to ensure that seniors and 
disabled Americans gain access to drug coverage. It is designed to 
ensure that seniors and disabled Americans lose access to what they 
want to do, which is privatize Medicare. Unless the goal is to phase 
out Medicare and phase in an insurance voucher system, it makes no 
sense to maintain a public program for medical and surgical benefits 
but for seniors to purchase private coverage for prescription drug 
benefits. If this bill is not about privatizing Medicare, if it is 
actually meant to provide seniors real drug coverage, why is there a 
hole in the plan's coverage? Why do the benefits decline as an 
enrollee's drug costs go up? Insurance is supposed to protect 
individuals with high health care costs, not to desert them. So why 
this kind of Republican plan that serves the insurance interests and 
drug company interests but not seniors?
  On May 8 the United Seniors Association, a group funded by the 
prescription drug industry, announced it would begin a $3 million 
television ad campaign touting the GOP drug prescription drug plan. 
Guess who is paying for the media blitz? The Pharmaceutical Research 
and Manufacturers of America are paying for the media blitz, a trade 
group representing major drug companies. In other words, the drug 
industry is using dollars they gouge from American consumers to 
advertise the Republican drug bill.
  What should that say? Would they advertise a bill they thought would 
be hard on the drug companies and drive a hard bargain with America's 
drug companies? Drug companies do not like the Democrats' bill because 
we harness the collective purchasing power of 40 million Medicare 
beneficiaries to demand discounts, volume discounts, to demand fair 
prices. Our bill gives seniors good coverage, real coverage, reliable 
coverage just like Medicare, plus we are tough on the drug companies. 
Glaxo-Wellcome, the company that sponsored the major Republican 
fundraiser last week, charges Americans the highest prices in the world 
for prescription drugs. Listen to that again. Glaxo-Wellcome, British-
owned prescription drug company, charges seniors the highest prices of 
any country in the world. The Republican plan is written by and for the 
drug companies. The Democrats' plan supports seniors.

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