[Congressional Record Volume 148, Number 86 (Tuesday, June 25, 2002)]
[House]
[Pages H3861-H3862]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




                   MEDICARE PRESCRIPTION DRUG BENEFIT

  The SPEAKER pro tempore. Pursuant to the order of the House of 
January 23, 2002, the gentleman from New Jersey (Mr. Pallone) is 
recognized during morning hour debates for 5 minutes.
  Mr. PALLONE. Mr. Speaker, this morning once again, as I have so many 
times, I take to the floor to talk about the need for a Medicare 
prescription drug benefit, and I was hoping this week that I would be 
able to thank my Republican colleagues for finally bringing up some 
legislation that would at least make an attempt to address the 
prescription drug issue. I read, though, today in both Congress Daily 
as well as in The New York Times that there is a real possibility that 
there may be a delay in the House drug bill action until July.
  Well, let me say once again, Mr. Speaker, how extremely disappointed 
I am to see that the Republicans, the Republican leadership in the 
House, continue to fiddle with this very important issue. They promised 
that they were going to bring up a prescription drug bill before the 
Memorial Day recess, then they promised they were going to bring up a 
prescription drug bill before the July 4th recess.
  Now it seems there is a real possibility they are not going to bring 
it up. I hope they do, even though I think they have a terrible bill 
that will not accomplish anything for the American people or for 
America's seniors. At least if we have the opportunity to have a debate 
on the floor, it allows us as Democrats to bring up our substitute 
bill, which is a real Medicare prescription drug benefit that would 
lower prices for seniors.
  Now, it is interesting to see why the Republicans may be having 
trouble bringing up their bill. I have said over and over again that 
the problem with the Republican proposal is it is not Medicare, it does 
not guarantee any benefits. What it does is throw money to private 
insurance companies in the hope that they will provide some sort of 
benefit for seniors that, unfortunately, does not have any guarantee 
about the scope of coverage or what the premium would be or whether 
there would be any benefit at all, because we know the private 
insurance companies say they probably will not offer this coverage.
  The other problem that the Republicans have is that they do not 
address the issue of price at all. They have language in their bill 
that says that the administrator of the program cannot interfere with 
price in any way. Well, that seems to be the problem. That is why they 
are having trouble bringing up their bill.

  If you look in Congress Daily today, it mentions the gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht), who says that he wants to push for inclusion 
of language allowing fewer restrictions on bringing FDA-approved drugs 
back into the country, known as reimportation.

[[Page H3862]]

  Well, Democrats have been saying for a long time that we should allow 
reimportation of drugs, because that is the way of bringing costs down. 
But the Republicans do not want to do that. When I tried to offer an 
amendment that would accomplish that in the Committee on Energy and 
Commerce the other night, they voted against it. The gentleman from 
Minnesota (Mr. Gutknecht) goes on to say, or his spokesman I should 
say, ``If we do not address the cost comparison, it is like building a 
house without a solid foundation,'' the spokeswoman said for Mr. 
Gutknecht. So that means they are concerned about costs.
  Once again, some of the Republicans seem to be unwilling to vote for 
this Republican bill because it does not have any cost containment. It 
does not control price the way the Democratic bill, in fact, would.
  In fact, further on in Congress Daily it says, ``Representative Jack 
Kingston and Jo Ann Emerson plan to discuss the issue of cost at a 
press conference today and announce a new congressional caucus to deal 
with drug costs.''
  Once again, the problem the Republicans have, no Medicare benefit, no 
real benefit at all, and no effort to address the issue of cost. That 
is why they are running into problems.
  Today's New York Times is about the Family USA study announced 
yesterday that talks about how the costs of prescription drugs are 
going up way out of proportion to the cost of inflation. It says in the 
article that one conservative Republican, the gentleman from Georgia 
(Mr. Collins), has indicated that he will vote against the Republican 
bill; and it goes on to say that one of the Republicans, the gentleman 
from Oklahoma (Mr. Istook), has expressed concern about the effects on 
pharmacies, because, as we know, the chain drugstores and retail 
pharmacies oppose the Republican bill, and the reason they do so is 
because they do not think it is going to provide any benefit and will 
make it harder for them to operate and provide pharmacy benefits.
  So let me say I understand full well why the Republicans are having a 
problem bringing up their bill, because it does not deal with price, it 
does not address the issue of price, it is forbidden to deal with the 
issue of price. That is why they have the noninterference language. It 
does not provide a benefit.
  But they should still bring it up and allow the opportunity for us to 
debate the bill and bring up our Democratic substitute, which is a good 
bill and could be considered and passed here and go over to the Senate 
and become law. So the fact they are having problems with their 
legislation does not mean that they should postpone another week or two 
or three or a month or who knows how long between now and November 
before the end of this session, because we need to address this issue. 
And if there are faults in their legislation, bring it to the floor and 
we will expose those faults and come up with a better bill, rather than 
just saying we are going to delay and not have an opportunity to 
address this issue, which is what the Republican leadership has done so 
far.

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